


Famous Last Words

by Avery72



Category: British Actor RPF, Richard Armitage - Fandom, Spooks | MI-5 RPF, Strike Back RPF
Genre: Action/Adventure, Engineers, Espionage, F/M, Love Triangles, Military Science Fiction, Romance, Slow Burn, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 16:59:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 28
Words: 76,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3389390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avery72/pseuds/Avery72
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Richard said, "Actually my ultimate role is to play another spy..." he didn't think they would become his famous last words.</p><p>Richard Armitage is given an exclusive, eight-week internship at the United States' Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to prepare for an upcoming television mini-series about military engineers. His mentor, Dr. Avery Nguyen, PhD (nicknamed Dan by her friends) is an over-enthusiastic, fast-talking, acronym-slinging woman with a bizarre sense of humor. As he learns more about Dan, Richard finds himself embroiled in actual spy work.</p><p>Warning: violence, profanity, and suggested sexual content.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome to DARPA

**Author's Note:**

> I re-watched Spooks/MI-5 just recently and wanted to try writing some spy fiction.  
> I hope you have as much reading this as I have had writing it!

Richard was overwhelmed by the pristine white walls of the facility. Richard followed his security escort down a hallway of just doors, no windows, and wondered to himself what other top secret projects were being nurtured in each room. When he said that he wanted to play another spy, he didn’t think that the role would include an exclusive eight-week internship at the United States’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, otherwise known as DARPA.

“Come along,” his escort said when Richard’s pace slowed as he got lost his in own thoughts. “Dr. Winslett doesn’t like to be kept waiting. He gets separation anxiety when he’s away from his research for too long.” The escort shook his head disapprovingly with a roll of his eyes and chuckled.

Richard quickened his pace and caught up with his escort. Being in this facility somehow made Richard feel childish and insignificant. The facility was intimidating.

“Do you remember the four rules about being at DARPA?” Richard’s escort asked.

Richard nodded. Before he was allowed in the facility, he had to sign a waiver with only four statements written in all capital letters, size 20, bold, sans serif font. At first, Richard thought the waiver was a joke he didn’t understand, but he was quick to realize that DARPA did not fool around. DARPA was a clandestine military research facility and they never left anything to chance.

Richard cleared his throat and recited:

  1.        I will not share (in any capacity) anything (including, but not limited to: photographs, written statements, audio recordings, personal experiences and conversations) about DARPA with anyone not strictly affiliated with DARPA.
  2.        I will not ask questions for things I do not know need to know the answers to.
  3.        I will not touch anything that does not belong to me.
  4.        I understand that any infraction of the above stated rules will result in severe federal prosecution.



The security escort turned his head and nodded with a small smile at Richard, impressed that Richard had memorized the waiver after looking at it only once. “Very good,” the escort said. “This isn’t an official rule, but I also recommend you always remember that the people who work here still are people. They’re of a rather peculiar sort, but they’re still people. Don’t be intimidated.”

Richard chuckled, “Well, I guess that makes me feel a little bit better.”

“Ah, here we are.” The escort stopped outside a door labeled “Electromagnetics Weapons Development.” The escort rapped three times on the door.

A tall and lanky man in his late thirties with floppy brown hair and thick glasses opened the door. The man had sharp brown eyes, a small nose, and ears that stuck out just slightly. He wore a faded gingham button-down shirt and khakis with combat boots. He had a crooked smile.

“Dr. Winslett,” the escort said with a curt head nod. “This is your tourist, Richard Armitage.”

Dr. Winslett firmly shook hands with Richard. “I’m Clive Winslett, current director of the electromagnetics weapon development department here at DARPA. Welcome!”

“The pleasure is all mine,” Richard replied. He was slightly surprised to find that the other man had callouses on his hands, indicating years of hard labor.

“I’m sure it is,” Clive said. “We have a lot of fun here. Probably more than what is socially appropriate.” Clive admitted Richard into another hallway that looked exactly like the hallway Richard was coming from. Dr. Winslett dismissed the security escort with a small smile and two-fingered salute.

"Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, aka DAPRA." Clive said as they walked. “I will admit that your first week here will be… disorienting. We use a lot of short-hand, nicknames, and acronyms. It helps a little bit with the secrecy of our work. Here at DARPA, we do a wide range of things I can’t tell you about.” Clive grinned.

Richard sighed internally. Clive apparently got lots of satisfaction telling other people he couldn’t tell them what he did for a living.

“So what do you, specifically, do?” Richard asked.

Clive stopped midway down the hall, pulled an ID badge from his pocket, and swiped it. The door gave a middle pitched bleep and unlocked. Clive pushed the door open into a room that looked like a warehouse filled with all sorts of mechanical equipment. It was a large, open space with the walls exposed. There was a garage door that led outside. There was a computer station in the corner of the room, surrounded by a thick layer of Plexiglas.

“Railguns,” Clive responded while handing Richard a pair of safety glasses from a container on the wall next to the door. Clive put on the pair he had hanging on the back collar of his shirt. Richard followed suit and followed Clive towards one of the devices.

“I build electromagnetic guns that can launch a projectile, say a quarter-inch steel rod, into the air at Mach 7, or seven times faster than the speed of sound. The force from the impact at that speed makes a fucking great explosion. And we can quite literally knock anything out of the sky. In a very basic sense, a railgun has two parallel rails and a projectile. A very strong current is run up one wire, across the projectile, and down the other wire. This strong current will generate a strong magnetic field that can push the projectile at the speed of sound.”

Richard nodded his head, pretending he understood what Clive was saying to him.

“However, there are two main problems with the railgun. First, the amount of power required current to fire a projectile at Mach 7 is enough to incapacitate an entire Navy battleship. Just think about that.” Clive paused, letting Richard think about it. Richard pretended to think about it, all of the information still going way over his head. “The second problem is mounting the railgun onto ships. Newton’s second law of motion states that the railgun itself will experience a kick-back as strong as the force used to propel the projectile. Think of the kick-back on a handgun and make give it the strength of a railgun. The results aren’t pretty.”

Richard wondered how long Clive could talk about railguns before needing to take a breath. Richard appreciated Clive explaining the basic principles behind his work, but it was a lot of information for a layman to digest. _I wonder if I’m also like this when I talk about my work_ , Richard thought to himself. _It also must be exciting, to finally be able to share something you love with someone who doesn’t work with you._

It was also obvious to anyone that Clive lived and breathed and loved his research. There was a glint to his eyes whenever he said the word “railgun.” Richard couldn’t help the small smile that formed on his lips, realizing that Clive had a child’s mentality and imagination in an adult body. _Kind of like myself_ , Richard thought. _Except with science and engineering. Doing things that actually make a significant difference in the real world_.

Richard was pulled out of his thoughts as Clive finished his introduction to his work. Clive placed his hands on his hips. “You’ll be partnered with Dan for your internship here; we figured this would guarantee you would have fun here at DARPA.”

Richard nodded and followed Clive towards the computer station.

"Dan!" Clive shouted as they approached. “DAN!”

“Shut up, Winters!” a high-pitched, slightly squeaky voice shouted back.

 _Can this place have any more surprises?_ Richard asked himself. Clive was not what he expected when he thought of a DARPA engineer, with calloused hands an ability to talk until your ears fell off. And Dan… Dan was a 5-foot-5-inch, petite Asian woman.

“Damn it,” she shouted. “You fucking made me lose my train of thought.”

Clive laughed and gave Dan a conciliatory pat on the shoulder. “It’ll come back to you eventually.” Turning his attention back to Richard, Clive said, “Richard, this is Dr. Avery Nguyen, aka Dan. She’s a brilliant engineer, but can also be a pain to work with.”

She sighed, rolled her shoulders, and stretched her neck. She offered her hand to Richard with a smile. “You must be my tourist.”

“I believe I am,” Richard replied calmly, smoothly.

“Want to go shooting?” Dan asked.

“Right now?” Richard asked.

Dan nodded. “We’re a weapons testing facility, of course we have a shooting range on campus.” She shrugged.

“Sure,” Richard replied. “But I only know how to shoot a little.”

Dan shrugged again. "That's all you need," she said. “You’ll learn with practice.”

“If you say so.” Richard replied.

“Yeah! That's the spirit!” she said, slapping Richard on the arm as she walked past him. “It will be our first bonding exercise, Hollywood.” She laughed, satisfied with the nickname she had bestowed upon Richard. Richard wasn’t sure what to make of the nickname; if he was honest, he didn’t really like it.

Richard raised both his eyebrows and took a deep breath. The security escort’s words came to his mind. _They’re of a rather peculiar sort, but they’re still people._ Richard shook his head as he followed Dan out of the garage door towards a shiny, black SUV. “This is going to be a very interesting eight-weeks indeed,” he said under his breath.


	2. The First Bonding Exercise

Before Richard knew was happening, Dan had slung a standard issue, semi-automatic M16A4 Navy rifle up to her shoulder and unloaded a magazine clip into five targets at different ranges spread across the three lanes of the indoor shooting range, shredding the targets into pieces in a just a few minutes. She let out a huge, relieved, satisfied breath of air as she lowered the rifle.

 _Holy shit_ , Richard thought. _She’s very good_. He shivered, partly from the meat locker temperature of the facility and how effective Dan was with a gun.

With one hand, Dan pulled her earmuffs down around her neck and pushed her safety glasses up onto her head. Dan turned her head to smile at Richard. It was the first time Richard had ever seen her eyes because her glasses had a tint; she had never removed the glasses she wore from the railgun laboratory space. Her eyes were large, scrutinizing, had a touch of playfulness, and were a surprising bright shade of light honey brown.

Richard pushed back only one ear of his own earmuffs to hear her. “Your turn, Hollywood.” She handed the rifle to Richard and switched places with him. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you.” As Richard got used to the feel of the firearm in his hands, Dan replaced the targets she destroyed with fresh ones.

Richard brought the rifle up and aimed at the first target. He shot a handful of bullets at the target, his shots not nearly as clean as Dan’s. He turned towards Dan, making an expression asking her for some advice.

Dan stood behind Richard’s left, her head coming up to his shoulder. She had to stand on her tip-toes to see over his shoulder and check his lines. Lowering herself back down, Dan adjusted the way Richard held the rifle against his shoulder. She was back on her tip-toes, checking his lines. As she did this, Richard was very aware of how closely she stood next to him and of the way her cold hands felt on his skin. He swallowed a lump in his throat, realizing there was a small amount of attraction for the woman budding in him.

Coming around to his other side, Dan said into his ear, “You should have a feel for the kick-back from the rifle; now you have to hold steady against it. Don’t push back too much.” She placed a hand on his right shoulder and gave him a gentle squeeze. “Relax this just a fraction.” She let her hand fall from his shoulder. “Take your time.”

She stepped away and Richard shot at the second target. Richard did his best to follow her instructions. This was a lot harder than he remembered when being trained for _Strike Back_. But, then again, he wasn’t using a real rifle when filming. On his second target, his shooting wasn’t much better, but it was still better.

Richard turned his head to Dan. She simply nodded back at him, encouraging him to work on the third target.

“Good,” Dan said, stepping back up to Richard's right after Richard completed the third target. “It also helps if you breathe out as you pull the trigger.”

Richard went through the last two targets. He lowered the rifle and rolled his shoulders. Unlike Dan, it took him a good twenty minutes to go through four targets. His arms were a little bit stiff from holding the position that Dan set him in.

“Hollywood, you're not bad at all for a novice.” Dan tossed Richard a fresh magazine clip. “Replace the clip and go again.”

Richard caught the clip out of the air. He had seen Dan do it; he thumbed the release switch above the trigger box and let the empty clip fall to the countertop. He smoothly slid the fresh magazine in until it clicked into place. As Richard did that, Dan replaced the targets.

Richard went again. He was just as slow, but his aim was much better.

“Are you going to tell me about yourself?” Richard asked, lowering the rifle and stepping out of the lane when he finished.

Dan looked up from the magazine she was reloading. She shrugged. “I have no interest in learning more about you.”

“You already know about me?”

“More than I’d care to admit. We received a dossier about you, to help us decide whether to accept you into the program or not.”

“That’s not fair. You know everything about me, but I know nothing about you.”

Dan smiled at Richard, but didn’t stop reloading the magazine. “There’s not much to know. Graduated from EEE at 18, first PhD in EEE fiver years later, and second PhD in ME four years later. After graduation I was recruited to and have been here at DARPA for seven years on joint commission with the US Navy.”

Richard cocked his head to the side and looked upwards, trying to do the math.

“I’m 34,” Dan readily supplied.

Richard raised an eyebrow. At best, Dan maybe looked like she was in her early twenties. And like Clive, Dan had a childish enthusiasm, which made her seem younger than she actually was.

“What’s EEE?” Richard asked.

“Electrical engineering.”

“And ME is mechanical engineering?” Richard added. Dan nodded at him, confirming that he had recognized the pattern.

\---

Richard and Dan continued shooting for another 90 minutes. In that time, Dan had Richard practice shooting using other standard issue US military firearms: an M4 carbine, Beretta M9, and SIG Sauer M11.

“The SIG Sauer is my favorite,” Dan admitted as she finished unloading the cartridge. “It’s nothing fancy, but it’s very dependable. And because the SIG Sauer is used internationally, you will always recognize the feel of the gun.” Just from this one session, Richard realized and understood the importance of being familiar with your weapon.

Richard held his hand out to take the gun from Dan, but she shook her head. “This is one I modified; it only fires when it recognizes hand print and grip. There’s also a shotgun cartridge attached beneath the main barrel; that’s what the secondary trigger is for.”

They walked back to her SUV, Richard carrying the cases for the rifle and carbine. She unlocked the doors by swiping her DARPA badge across the door handle. She placed the cases for the Beretta and SIG Sauer in the back seat. While Richard loaded the cases into the boot of the SUV, Dan pulled her t-shirt up and over her head.

Richard’s eye fell on the large scars wrapped around her right shoulder and collarbone. He blushed slightly at her exposure of skin, but he couldn’t advert his gaze because he was just too curious about the scars. He finally managed to look away when she pulled a fresh, identical, V-neck, grey t-shirt over her head. Richard bit his lower lip in embarrassment.

“Didn’t think you’d be one to be shy about nudity, Hollywood,” Dan remarked as she reached adjusted at the hem of her shirt to settle it.

“No, no,” Richard mumbled.  “That scar…”

“Palestinians thought I was a spy.” She had a matter-of-fact, nonchalant tone when she said that.

“Excuse me?” Richard asked.

“The US has a history of strong military relations with Israel. When I was serving over there, doing EMW R and D research, I was picked up by Palestinian spooks. They gave me that as a souvenir of my four month vacation with them.” She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “But it looks a lot uglier than it felt.”

Richard looked at his feet, at a loss for words. Despite playing spies who experienced capture and torture, he couldn’t imagine how terrifying and traumatic the actual experience would have been. He suppressed a shudder when he thought about the one time he had let himself, as Lucas North, be water boarded for _Spooks_.

Richard was impressed Dan was still a high functioning person. Whatever emotional scars she carried, she hid them very well. “EMW R and D?” Richard finally asked, not sure what else to say. _What exactly do you say to something like this?_ Richard thought. _Saying "I'm sorry" seems inadequate on all levels._

“Electromagnetics weapons research and development.”

“Obviously,” Richard said. “I should have expected that one.” He chuckled, deflecting how uncomfortable he actually felt about Dan’s story.

Dan settled herself into the driver’s seat of the SUV. As Richard climbed in, she laughed at the expression he had on his face. She reached across the median and placed a hand on his arm. “I’m just shitting you,” she said with a smile. “It makes a much better story than ‘I got into a car accident.’ Don’t you think?” She started the engine of the vehicle.

Richard frowned at her. He wondered how much of what she said was true; given the type of military training and skills Dan had, there was a very real and distinct possibility that Dan had served in Israel and Palestine for a year or two. He silently laughed at himself;  _There is no way this little engineer could possibly be a CIA field agent._

“Not funny?” Dan asked.

Richard shook his head. “No, not really. I thought you were being serious. And being captured and tortured is not really something to joke about.”

Dan kissed her teeth. “Winters says I have a bad sense of humor; I guess he’s right.” Dan put the SUV into gear and started driving back to the laboratory. “In general,” Dan said, “the only thing I take seriously is my work. Everything else is fun and games.” She gave Richard a quick glance. “How FUBAR would it be if we took everything too seriously?”

“FUBAR?” Richard asked. He was starting to grow wary of all the acronyms Dan used.

“Fucked up beyond recognition.”

They drove in silence back to the warehouse. Dan pulled up to the door, but didn’t turn off the SUV. Richard looked at her, not sure what was happening.

“You’re here for the rest of the day with Winters,” Dan said. “I have some personal business to attend to.”

Richard was a little hesitant to get out of the SUV. He liked Clive, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to be lectured again until his ears fell off. “Can’t I come with you?” Richard asked nervously.

Dan considered it for a moment, then said, “I’ll be back in about four hours.”

“Please?” Richard asked. “I’m not here to just learn engineering, but to learn about engineers as people. I’d really like to come with you and learn how you interact with others.”

Dan laughed. “You make it sound like I have no social skills whatsoever. Like I wasn’t born and raised on the planet Earth.”

Richard looked away and blushed slightly. _You kind of are… not human_. Richard thought. _Like the general public, we're casually aware of your existence; but I didn’t really believe wonky super engineers like you actually exist._

“Sorry,” Richard said. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“I know what you mean; I’m just giving you a hard time. What’s next?” Dan joked. “You’re going to ask to move in with me because I take a lot of my work home and you want to witness all facets of my job? So that you can ensure that you portray me in your mini-series with as much accuracy as possible?”

“Now that you mention it, that’s a great idea. How about I move in at the end of this week?” Richard joked back.

Dan laughed, but shook her head. “There’s a fine line between observing my life and being a part of it. We’re not crossing that line, Hollywood.”


	3. New Assignment

There was a slap as the thick dossier hit the conference table. Avery looked up from her phone at the man standing on the other side of the table, his jacket open and his hands on his hips.

Even at 50, Kevin McAllister was a handsome man. He was 6-foot-1 and well-built. He kept his blond hair trimmed short, had no facial hair, a square jaw, and sharp, dark brown eyes. He was equally good as Avery with a gun and was wickedly perceptive about people.

“Ghostrider, get your feet off the table,” Avery’s current CIA supervisor said in fake annoyance.

“Might as well be comfortable while I wait, Alleycat,” Avery replied while rising to her feet. She reached across the table and shook hands with Kevin. She settled back into her seat, with her feet on the floor. She slid the dossier off the table and into her lap, but didn’t open it.

“Anyway, thanks for coming in. How’s your tourist?” He placed his hands in his pockets.

“Armitage? He’s alright.”

“Just alright?” Kevin raised a suspicious eyebrow. “Most women would disagree with you.”

Avery shrugged. “I’m not most women.”

Kevin barked a laugh. “Good thing, too.” He shifted his weight. “Anyway, we have your next assignment.” He tilted his chin towards the dossier in Avery’s lap, encouraging her to take a look.

Avery flipped to the first page and all color drained from her face. Her finger hovered over the black-and-white profile photograph of the target. She looked up in horror at Kevin. Avery didn’t need to read the rest of the dossier to know what the assignment was about; she was the original agent on the operation.

“You’re shitting me,” she breathed out. Unconsciously, Avery massaged a non-existent ache in her right shoulder.

Kevin shook his head. “We need you back on Operation Jester. If it’s any consolation, your assignments are strictly limited to gathering intelligence. We have other agents to do the… wet work.”

Avery threw her hand back and laughed. “As if you won’t eventually push me towards wet work!” Avery angrily glared at Kevin. “Some consolation that is,” she huffed. “Kevin, we’ve talked about this. Extensively. I’ve burned one too many times by Jester. I’m out.”

She forcefully slid the dossier across the table at Kevin.

“You don’t have a choice, Ghostrider.”

“I don’t have a choice?” Avery growled. “I was tortured for four months and have the scars to prove it. Don’t tell me I don’t have a choice.”

She didn’t lie to Richard when she said that the scars on her right shoulder and collarbone were a gift from the Palestinians. She didn’t know why she told Richard the truth; the words just came out before she could stop herself. _I have to be more careful_ , she chided herself. _I can’t let things slip because a small part of me fancies the man. Hah! I fancy a man; that’s a first in a long time._

Kevin patiently waited for Avery to come out of her thoughts. He knew that no matter how much she complained, she would always perform the assignment. She had an obligation to the American public as a high-ranking CIA agent and she knew it.

“What about Winters?” Avery asked.

“He’ll be fine. You’ll only be gone for a few days.”

Kevin slid the dossier across the table and Avery opened it to the third page. “You want me to investigate a special arms trade deal happening in Malaysia in two weeks.” She scanned the names of high profile attendees, recognizing most of them.

“It’s a quickie. Get in; get out. Done in three days, including travel.”

“Tactical support?”

“Your choice.”

“I want Vortex,” Avery replied without any hesitation.

“Done.”

**\---**

_When is Dan coming back?_ Richard wondered. _This is excruciating. Excruciating with a capitol E._ He had his left elbow propped on the desk, his head propped on his left fist. He idly tapped on the desk with his pencil in his right hand.

First, Clive had given Richard an extensive lecture about laboratory safety. Then, Clive had given Richard a university-level textbook and four sheets of basic physics problems to solve. Richard had spent the past three hours re-reading the same page and staring at the first few questions; he had a severe headache.

 _I should just plant my head on this desk and cry,_ Richard thought right as Dan walked into the laboratory. He perked up in his seat, but his excitement was instantly dashed away when he noticed her foul mood.

Avery strode over to her desk, pulled out her worn canvas messenger bag with the same pattern as the Navy uniform from the bottom left-hand drawer, and started shoving stacks of papers into her bag. This included the manila envelope that she had carried in with her.

“You alright?” Clive asked.

“Just your typical SNAFU, Winters,” Dan replied with a hint of irritation in her voice.

Clive nodded; Clive had known Dan long enough to know that “personal business” was her way of saying that she had to go to other job. Clive assumed that her other job was dealing with bureaucrats at the Navy headquarters; he never asked specific questions because, like the waiver Richard signed had said, “I will not ask questions for things I do know need to know the answers to.”

Clive had no idea that Dan worked for the CIA.

Before Richard could ask what the acronym stood for, Dan supplied, “Situation normal: all fucked up,” in the same irritated tone. Throwing the strap of her bag over her shoulder, she asked, “What are you working on Hollywood?” Dan came over to look at the textbook and four sheets of paper Clive had given Richard; she placed a cold hand on his shoulder as she leaned over the desk.

Richard didn’t have to make a pain expression for Dan to know of his misery.

Dan shook her head and chuckled. “Winters, you’re absolutely brutal. There’s a reason this man is an actor, not a scientist!”

Clive shrugged. “He can be the sugar plum fairy for all I care. He has to learn.”

“Can’t have uneducated tourists?” Dan crossed her arms over her chest. “When did you become a martinet?”

“When you pissed in my Cheerios this morning.”

Dan and Clive laughed. Richard simply raised an eyebrow and looked back and forth between the two DARPA employees, not entirely sure he understood their sense humor. _They’re of a rather peculiar sort, but they’re still people_ , Richard reminded himself.

Dan started walking towards her SUV and made a gesture with her hand for Richard to follow her. “Alright, Hollywood. Let’s get dinner and I’ll walk you through the problems.”

In a flash, Richard was out of his seat and walking in step with Dan. He was excited both to be spending more time with Dan and to get a break from something he couldn’t understand despite his best efforts. They climbed into her SUV and she put it in gear.

“Do you… want to talk about it?” Richard asked as they rolled down the highway. In the silence of the drive, Dan had returned to her miserable funk.

“No, I don’t.”

“Sorry,” Richard apologized. He turned his attention to the other cars on the highway. They had only known each other for half a day, but he hated that he never seemed to have the right thing to say. He wasn’t tongue-tied or awe struck; it was just that Dan found words to be cheap, so Richard felt like he never had anything to say that had gravity.

They drove in silence for a little longer.

“You have two choices: spaghetti or hamburgers.” Dan glanced away from the road for just a second to make eye contact with Richard. “Not really the most glamorous of food choices, but that’s what I want right now.”

“Hamburgers,” Richard blurted out.

“Excellent choice. French Fries are good for brain power.” The corners of her mouth turned upwards just slightly.

\---

 _Holy Hell, where does it go?_ Richard wondered as he watched Dan swallow her second hamburger. She also had consumed one strawberry milkshake and an order of fries.

They were in a small, quiet restaurant that was decorated with all sorts of sports memorabilia. Richard realized that Dan liked the place because of its comfortable feel, not because she was a sports fanatic. The minute she walked into the restaurant, Richard noticed her relax considerably. The wait staff had appropriately nicknamed her The Black Hole and they didn’t mind her spending hours working in at her table.

“You ready to start?” Dan asked as he stated on her second order of fries.

“Uh, yeah,” Richard said. “I think I got the first one…”

Dan chuckled. “No you didn’t.” She got up and slid into the booth next to Richard. Taking his pencil from his hand, Dan crossed off the equation he had written and wrote a different one. “Try this one.”

She munched on some fries while Richard worked out the math.

"Good," she purred when he finished. Richard couldn't help the smile that formed on his lips at the approval in her voice. "Now," she said, "why do you think I had you use this equation instead of the one you had earlier?"


	4. Day 2, Morning

The same security escort greeted Richard at the main entrance.

“Thank you,” Richard said with a polite smile as he took his temporary DAPRA badge from the older man. He clipped the badge over his right hip, the same way he had seen Clive and Dan wear their badges.

“How was your yesterday?” the security escort asked as they walked down the hallways to the EMW R and D testing warehouse.

“It’s a lot to take in,” Richard admitted.

“You’ll be fine. Dan is a sweetheart. Isn’t she?” He smiled at Richard.

“Yeah…” Richard replied, not totally convinced. Richard fingered the small, leather-bound diary he kept in his pocket and ran though the mental dossier he had created for Dan. _She’s a gun-wielding mathematics genius with a bizarre sense of humor, who is as moody as I am, and who can eat more food than the average-sized man. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg._

Even though Richard did fell a small amount of attraction towards the DARPA engineer, he didn’t think to describe her as a sweetheart.

“She really is,” the security escort said when he saw Richard’s skeptical expression. “Once you get used to her guns -blazing, balls-to-the-wall, full-tilt personality, you’ll realize it for yourself.” The security escort stopped outside the appropriate door. “Anyway, check you badge and see if it works.”

Richard swiped his badge and the electric lock disengaged. Richard opened the door into the next hallway; he remembered that the warehouse door was about 3/4 the way down. The doors were labeled, anyway.

“Have a good day.”

“You, too.”

\---

Dan was already at her desk, furiously scribbling something on messy pile of sheets. In her other hand, she held a stainless steel travel mug with the DARPA logo emblazoned on it. Richard could tell it was a well-loved mug by the handful of small dents on it.

Half of the warehouse lights were switched on, bathing the entire facility in a soft glow. The only other light came from a desk lamp with a flexible neck on Dan’s desk. She had positioned it so that it illuminated her messy pile of papers, but didn’t cause a glare on her computer screen.

Dan took a quick swig of her drink as she put down her pen and positioned her hands on the keyboard. She mumbled something under her breath and punched keys as furiously as she had been writing. Richard had no idea that any human’s fingers could move that quickly across a keyboard.

 _How long has she been here?_ Richard wondered. He glanced at his watch and it was barely past 08:00. _Did she even go home after she dropped me off last night?_

“Silence, Hollywood,” Dan said without diverting her attention. She typed in a few more lines of code, hit the return key with a little too much force, and sat back to see if her program would compile. Her eyes widened in anticipation as the progress bar stalled for a few seconds around the 80% mark. Once she saw the green box of approval, she rose from her seat and approached Richard.

“Need a refill.”

Without waiting for a response, Dan handed Richard her travel mug and headed back into the hallway of doors. As she walked, she each hand tapped a unique pattern on her thighs. Richard followed her silently through the maze. She tapped her DARPA badge to the door handle and the lock clicked as it disengaged. Dan walked into a small, bleak space that more closely resembled a studio apartment than office cubicle. The lights automatically flickered to life and Richard realized that this was Dan’s official office.

“Give me your badge,” Dan ordered as she poured distilled water into an electric kettle and set it to boil.  
She held her hand out expectantly. Richard handed her his badge and she examined it. She took a seat at the computer and slipped Richard’s card into the reader. As she pulled up his data, she started typing in modifications.

The electric kettle turned itself off. “Be a dear and make tea,” Dan said without diverting her attention.

Richard was starting to get slightly annoyed with Dan’s attitude towards him; she was treating him like some kind of man-servant and he was still too tired to hide his grumpiness. But he still followed her instructions and made tea.

Dan waved Richard over. “Put your palm flat on the pad,” Dan instructed. Richard put his hand down. “Now you wait.” Dan swiveled in her chair and stood up. Opening the bottom cabinet drawer, she pulled out a second DARPA travel mug, except this one was painted navy blue. Dan filled both her mug and the new mug with tea.

The computer bleeped, indicating that it was done scanning Richard’s hand. “You can remove your hand now,” Dan said. She handed Richard the navy blue mug and sat down. Like in the testing warehouse, she typed a few more lines of code and waited for the green box of approval.

Richard sipped at his tea. He felt better as the warmth seeped into his bones. He was more of a traditional Earl Grey with a splash of milk sort of man, but he could appreciate Dan’s plain oolong tea.

Dan stood up and handed Richard back his badge. Now printed in bold letters was the word “TOURIST” under his photo. Richard scoffed and clipped the badge back to its spot on his right hip.

“I gave you card access to all of my equipment, including my SUV,” Dan said as grabbed her travel mug and they walked back through the maze of hallways to the testing warehouse. “I’m also going to code your hand into my SIG; we’ll have to come back to do the grip recognition, but the hand patterning takes a while.”

She rolled her shoulders and swiped her badge to allow them access back into the warehouse. “By the way, I’m a grumpy morning person,” Dan apologized. “After spending so many hours by myself, I sometimes forget how to interact with people. You understand, right?”

Richard nodded. “I can become so absorbed in a character it takes me a few hours to get back to being my relatively normal self.”

“Exactly.” Dan slipped her safety glasses on. “Get your eyes. While IGOR 2 and 7 are busy, MJ needs maintenance.”

Richard raised an eyebrow, totally and utterly confused.

“Sorry,” Dan said. She didn’t sound apologetic at all, but was just saying the word because that was what dictated as socially appropriate.

Richard smirked and said, “No you’re not.” _I fucking hope this works_ , Richard thought to himself. _I fucking hope I get her sense of humor right otherwise this is going to be a total disaster_.

The corner of Dan’s mouth turned up in a smirk. She spun sharply on her heel, regarding Richard with interest. “Sorry I’m not sorry.” She playfully punched Richard in the arm.

 “Ow!” Richard gently massaged the area where Dan’s fist connected with his bicep.

“Sorry I’m not sorry.”

“Are you always this mean?”

Den replied by flexing her arms and projecting an over-exaggerated toughness. “We manhandle things in this department. If you can’t handle it, Hollywood, go join the hackers in F24.”

Richard bit the bottom of his lip, trying his best not to laugh. He couldn’t kill the smile, though.

Dan, seeing Richard on the verge of hysterical laughter, started laughing. She had to turn her head to look away because she was laughing so hard she had to gasp for air.

“Eyes are safety glasses. I nicknamed all the CPUs in EMW R and D IGOR, like after Frankenstein’s assistant. MJ, short for Marilyn Jennifer, is our test railgun.” Dan pointed at the quarter-sized railgun sitting on a hydraulic transporter. “Not to be confused with MJ, Clive’s daughter.”

“Why would Clive name his railgun after his daughter?”

Dan barked a laugh. “Who said his daughter wasn’t named after his railgun?”

“You’re kidding.”

Dan pursed her lips and made an awkward expression. “Wish I could say I was joking.”

Richard laughed.

Dan walked over to Clive’s desk and held out a picture frame to Richard. Richard took the frame and examined the smiling faces.

Clive was wearing a similar outfit to what he was wearing yesterday, his wife was dressed similarly to Dan, and their young daughter was wearing a gaudy princess outfit complete with a tiara and magic wand with ribbons. Clive had his daughter in his arms, his back pressed against his wife’s back. She was posed like James Bond and Richard recognized the SIG Sauer in her hands.

 _What a fucking bonkers family_ , Richard thought. _But live and let live._

“Sarah Chesteen, Clive’s late wife, was a government analyst and my best friend. I nicknamed her Snowfall. Fun tidbit: I introduced Snowfall and Winters when I was recruited to DARPA. Anyway, MJ is now a feisty five-year-old, which is why Winters doesn’t come in until around 10:00.”

“What kind of analyst is trained with guns?”

Dan shrugged. “If you’re going to send your analyst into dangerous territory, you better train her.” She step the picture frame back in its place. “B-to-B, get your eyes. I’m going to teach you to weld.”

Richard walked over to his desk and slipped his safety glasses on. “B-to-B?” he asked.

“Back to business.”

“Do you always speak like this?”

“Wait until you see me with my N Bros.” Dan stuck her tongue out at Richard and he rolled his eyes in response. “Navy brothers.”

\---

Dan angrily crossed her arms and frowned at Richard. “What. The. Fuck.”

After teaching Richard how to weld and to make the minor repairs MJ needed, Dan wandered back to her computer to work on whatever she was working on that morning. She had wandered back over to Richard to take him to lunch.

Richard grinned at Dan. “I’m taking a selfie with the railgun.”

“We are a **TOP SECRET** **MILITARY FACILITY**. We **DO NOT** take fucking selfies with our equipment.”

Richard dropped his gaze and did his best to discreetly slide his phone into his trousers pocket. He felt very uncomfortable under her gaze; he could have sworn that if her eyes could shoot daggers, he would look like a porcupine.

 _Please don’t hurt me_ , Richard thought.

Dan saw the fear in Richard’s eyes and sighed. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she said as gently as she could. There was still a very hard edge to her tone. “But you can’t be doing that. Remember the number one rule at DARPA?”

“I will not share anything about DARPA without anyone not strictly affiliated with DARPA,” intoned Richard.

“Exactly.” Dan sighed. “Next time, ask me before you do something. Delete those photos and let’s get lunch.”

“Sorry,” Richard apologized.

“Don’t apologize; just don’t do it again.”

Richard added “strong physical threat presence” to his mental dossier of Dan. As afraid as he had been of her anger, he wondered if he would be able to re-create her poise for his character. And although he didn’t like to be chastised, he didn’t resent Dan because he did break the rules.


	5. Day 2, Evening

Dan and Richard walked to the DARPA cafeteria in total silence, with Richard training a few steps behind Dan. Dan was still upset about Richard breaking the first rule of DARPA; Richard didn’t know what to say to improve her mood, so he didn’t say anything at all. And like in the morning, Dan’s hands continued tapping their unique patterns on her thighs as she walked.

 _Did she do that yesterday?_ Richard wondered. He almost walked right into Dan as he tried his best to remember. _Yeah, she tapped her fingers on the steering wheel while driving to dinner. But it wasn’t anything as intense as what she’s doing today._ Richard wondered if the tapping was a nervous tick Dan had or if it was her way of fidgeting.

Dan and Richard also ate in total silence. After Dan inhaled her lunch, which consisted of two gigantic mounds of potato salad and a pear, she took Richard to complete the grip recognition step for her SIG Sauer. If she noticed that Richard poked at his lunch, lacking appetite because his mentor was upset at him, she didn’t say anything about it.

“Hold it loosely,” she ordered with a flat tone.

Richard held a replica for the grip of the SIG Sauer in his right hand. He held the part with the bare minimum about of force required to not drop it.

“Squeeze as hard as you can,” Dan ordered in the same flat tone.

Richard adjusted his grip slightly and squeezed the part with all the frustration he had built up over the past few hours. Richard surprised himself with how hard and for how long he had been squeezing.

“You’re done.”

Richard handed the replica part back to Dan, who tucked it away in a drawer that had a few older models of the SIG Sauer, various replica parts, bullets, and the pad that scanned his palm print. Unlike with palm print recognition step, the process for coding in Richard’s grip was much more rapid, taking approximately 20 minutes.

“GTFO. I’ll find you when I need you.”

“Excuse me?” Richard asked.

“Get the fuck out. Winters will have things for you to do. Get to it.” Even though Dan had never looked away from her computer screen since walking into her office, Richard could feel the shift of her attention to be fully on the thousands of lines of code displayed.

Richard opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it. He could understand why Dan would be upset at him for breaking a rule, but he couldn’t understand how she could be that upset. With a sigh and shoving his hands into his pockets, he left Dan’s office.

As soon as the office door closed behind her, Dan let out the breath she didn’t know she was holding. She leaned back in her chair and covered her mouth and nose with her hands. She wasn’t hyperventilating, but re-breathing her own CO2 helped calm her down.

“Fuck,” she said, rubbing her eyes and temples. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Dan undid the bun and ran her hands through her hair. On the second run, she paused to massage her scalp a little. She knew it was wrong of her to react the way she did. She knew that she had over-reacted. And she knew that her over-reaction would only cause Richard to ask questions she didn’t want to answer.

Ever since Palestine, Dan’s emotional stability sat on the edge of a knife. It was part of the reason why she threw herself at her work with a renewed vigorousness. Mathematics offered her an immutable safety, and she didn’t have to explain herself to others when she disappeared in her work for days on end. The other DAPRA employees inherently understood because they were the same way. Dan was convinced that no one could know how badly the failed Palestine mission had affected her.

“It’s not fucking Palestine all over again,” Dan mumbled to herself. “Nothing happened today. No one is going to get hurt.” Her hands balled into fists so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

But even as she said those words to comfort herself, Dan couldn’t stop the memories of Snowfall’s final minutes from running through her mind. She couldn’t stop the guilt she felt; it had been her operation and Snowfall had died on that operation. All it had taken for everything to fall apart was misplaced trust in a single person.

Dan couldn’t stop the words Snowfall had said to her right before she died. “Take care of Winters and MJ.”

Snowfall had said the words with a soft smile and a gentle tone. She said the words knowing that she was going to be executed in a matter of seconds and that she would be leaving behind her husband and baby daughter. She said the words without anger or resent, just with faith in her best friend that everything would turn out okay.

\---

Clive was just about to start work on the major repairs MJ needed when Richard stormed back into the warehouse. Without asking, Clive put down his equipment and gave Richard a hug. At first, it was unbearably uncomfortable. But Richard quickly realized how much he needed the hug. Clive did not pass any judgement on Richard for displaying his vulnerability to him; Richard admitted to himself how soothing it was to be wrapped in Clive’s lanky, strong arms in a non-sexual way.

“You make the same face my daughter does when she’s upset,” Clive said with a lopsided grin, releasing Richard.

“Good to know.” Richard mimicked Clive’s grin. “Is Dan always that moody?”

“You mean Dan oscillating between being your best friend to half a step away from ripping your throat out with her bare hands? I wasn’t lying when I said that Dan is a pain to work with, Hollywood.” Clive shrugged. “No, she hasn’t always been that way. She was never the same after her two-year deployment to Israel. I don’t know what happened because she never talks about it; she shuts down whenever I bring it up or she tries to kill me with that glare she has. You know the one.

“Anyway, she came back and had a vacant look in her eyes for a few months. And she broke up with Vortex, which was such a shame because those two were perfectly in sync and I’d really hoped they would get married. She also kept flinching when we called her by her nickname, so we instead started calling her ‘Dan.’

“I should have been there for her. But I was rather lost myself. My wife died the year before Dan came home and I was struggling to be a single parent. MJ was only two at the time and I had no idea what to do.”

Clive paused to take a breath. Richard had forgotten how long-winded Clive could be; it was as if Clive needed to vomit all his words in one conversation, to make up for all the time in the day he remains silent. Richard had hundreds of questions he wanted to ask Clive. But because Clive spoke in giant streams of thought, there was no way for Richard to interrupt without seeming too nosy.

“Anyway, I don’t know what triggers her rage. All I do know is that you have to leave her alone until her works out whatever is bother her.” Clive shrugged. “I also know that working will help you let go of your own anger at her for being so fucking moody.” Clive handed Richard his equipment and went to get another set.

The two men worked on MJ, Clive giving his typical extensive explanations for each step as they went.

“I was just wondering, do you get a lot of dick jokes?” Clive asked as they took a short break.

“What?”

“You know, because Richard shortened is ‘Dick.’ I was just wondering if you got a lot of dick jokes because of that.”

Richard laughed. “Surprisingly, no.”

“Well, Dan and I will have to remedy that when she’s not too busy calling you ‘Hollywood.’ This is your one and only warning to brace yourself.”

“Bring it on.”

“Perfect timing,” Clive announced as he turned off his welding torch. It was 17:07; he needed to head home in a few minutes to relieve the nanny. “Good work, Hollywood. You should feel as satisfied with yourself as you do after jacking off.”

The two men giggled. It wasn’t as good as some of the other penis jokes that Clive had dropped earlier, but it was still kind of funny. They put all their equipment back in their respective places.

“Should I leave?” Richard asked, not sure what to do next.

Clive shook his head. “Dan will back for you. Work on your physics problems.”

“Do you know how long it will be?”

“Give her at least another hour.”

“One more thing before you leave…” Richard hesitated for a second. “What was Dan’s nickname before it was Dan?”

“Her nickname? Ghostrider.” Clive gave Richard a two-fingered salute and walked out of the warehouse.

Richard, now left on his own, had time to process what he learned from Clive about Dan’s past. He sat down at his desk, folded his arms across his chest, and closed his eyes.

 _Two-year deployment to Israel… Israel and Palestine…. Does that mean her story about her scar is true? Was she really picked up and tortured by Palestinians? How much does Clive really know?_ The floodgates opened and Richard was drowning in all these thoughts.

_God… If it is true… She must be so broken…_

_Wait… How long ago was this? If Clive’s daughter is now five… and Clive said she was two when his wife died? So this was three years ago? But Dan said she had been working for DARPA for the past seven years… Oh, on joint commission with the Navy. They could have deployed her…_

_Poor girl… Dan is perfect for my character study. Which is exciting and terribly depressing at the same time._

_Who’s Vortex?_

After 45 minutes passed, Richard was about to leave because his stomach was grumbling. He had barely eaten lunch that day. However, as soon as that thought crossed his mind, Dan walked into the warehouse. She handed Richard a roast beef sandwich and a bottle of water. He drank half the bottle and took a few bites of the sandwich.

“Are you in a hurry to get somewhere or do you want go shooting?” Dan asked. She perched at the edge of Richard’s desk and sipped at her tea as she watched Richard eat.

“Technically I’m all yours until midnight,” Richard replied. “Tomorrow I’m off-site for combat training.”

“Take your time. Eat dinner and then we’ll go shooting.” She walked over to her desk and started picking through the files. She tossed a handful of sheets in the recycling bin. She then proceeded to clean up the desk, putting pens into their appropriate cups.

\---

Richard slowly let out his breath and pulled the trigger. He liked the feel of the SIG Sauer in his hand; he liked the way it made whistles when it recognized his palm print and grip strength. He understood why it was Dan’s favorite gun.

When the magazine clip was empty, Richard lowered his arm and massaged his sore arm muscles. He had been standing sideways, with his right arm outstretched. His arm had started to get a bit sort from holding the position and keeping the gun steady when firing. He looked over at Dan, who held the same stance and was also using another of her modified SIG Sauers. Even using her non-dominant, left hand she was still a better shot than he was. _Damn_ , Richard thought. _I’ve got a long way to go before I can even approach her level._

Dan lowered her arm and looked back at Richard. “You alright?” she asked. She hadn’t said much to him, except to offer him some advice on how to improve his shooting. The only time she had touched him was to adjust his stance when he first took it.

“Yeah. You alright?”

“Yeah.”

Dan reached down into her bag and pulled out a silencer. She handed the part to Richard. “Now practice with the silencer. It changes the balance of the gun a little bit. It’s good to be able to handle both.”

Richard turned the part around in his hands. “How do I put it on?” he asked sheepishly.

The corners of Dan’s mouth turned up just slightly. “Like this.” She screwed the silencer into the barrel’s grooves in a counterclockwise direction. There was a soft click as the silencer was fully integrated with the gun. She then unscrewed the silencer and handed it back to Richard.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

\---

_The interrogator paced back and forth in the small room, watching the two women calmly regard each other. Ghostrider was tied to a chair. Snowfall was standing with her hands tied behind her back. The interrogator’s henchman was holding Snowfall upright tightly against him, the muzzle of his gun pressed against the soft spot under Snowfall’s jaw._

_“Time is ticking,” the interrogator said with a harsh accent. It wasn’t Israeli or Palestinian._

_“I don’t know her,” Ghostrider said flatly._

_“Women and their lies. You know I’ll kill her if you don’t start talking.”_

_“You’ll kill her regardless.”_

_“I already shot out her knee. Do you really want to test my resolve?”_

_Ghostrider didn’t respond._

_The interrogator shrugged. “There’s a chance you could save your friend.”_

_“She’s not my friend.”_

_The interrogator continued to pace back and forth, letting the timer run._

_The timer displayed three seconds left. Snowfall offered a kind smile to Ghostrider. “Take care of Winters and MJ.” Ghostrider knew that tone; it was a tone Snowfall always used whenever she could sense Ghostrider’s anger was about to break loose._

_The timer beeped._


	6. Combat Training

Richard woke up with a jolt, thinking his alarm clock was a bomb timer going off. His skin was slick from the cold sweats he had and his jaw was sore from being clenched through the entire dream. There was a lingering panic coursing through his veins, as he came down from the adrenaline high he had in his dream. But Richard couldn’t remember the specifics of what he had been dreaming about. Only the last few seconds of the bomb about to explode.

With a groan, Richard blindly slapped at his nightstand to turn off the damn noise. He rolled over onto his other side and covered his head with his pillow. With each passing year, Richard found it harder and harder to recover from jetlag.

 _You need to get up_ , a Richard scolded himself. _It’ll get easier as the weeks pass. But have to get in the habit now_.

Richard groaned again, not wanting to listen to the rational part of his brain. But he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and stretched. As he slipped out of bed and showered, he thought, _It’s too soon. It’s way too soon to start having these dreams_. He had been reading thought his script and making notes before going to bed, and it wasn’t unusual for him to dream in character, but those dreams typically start until after filming started.

Today was Richard’s first day of combat training, so he wasn’t too particular about making himself presentable. He pulled on a black tracksuit and laced his trainers. He ate a muffin and drank some tea, then he loitered around the hotel lobby waiting for whomever was supposed to pick him up. Due to the massive amounts of paperwork required to get Richard a parking permit at DARPA’s campus, the film company decided to completely forgo giving Richard a car. They arranged for him be chauffeured around.

Two men, dressed in running clothes, entered the hotel lobby. They quickly spotted Richard and introduced themselves.

“I’m Sam Peterson, your stunt trainer.” Sam was as tall as Richard. He had a shock of red hair and freckles, and a big, toothy grin. Sam was a lithe man, with wiry muscles. He bounced foot-to-foot, eager to build a sweat. His phone was secured in a running armband, a set of in-ear headphones draped around his neck.

“Jason McAllister. Navy combat training.” Jason was the shortest of the three men, standing at a little over 6-feet. However, Jason looked every inch the military man. His mousey brown hair was square cut; he was clean-shaven; he had a hard set, square jaw and green eyes, with a permanent furrow between his brows. Jason also carried himself with an authoritative strength and dominance.

“Richard Armitage.”

The men shook hands.

“It may be your first day, but we’re going to run you into the ground,” Sam said, smiling with a slightly sadistic crinkle in the corner of his eyes.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Richard responded with a small smile of his own.

“FTF, running,” Jason said. “From here to the gym.”

Richard couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his mouth. He was surprised by the use of an acronym. _You don’t happen to know Dan, do you?_

“First things first,” Jason supplied. “Let’s see what you got.” He playfully slapped Richard on the bicep.

“If you want to grab your iPod, do it now,” Sam added as he plugged his earbuds in.

Richard pulled his phone from his pocket and said, “Got it.” He put his own earbuds in and the three men took off.

\---

“Good work!” Sam said, lowering the punching bags attached to his hands. He stripped them off and patted Richard on the back. Richard, who had run seven miles from the hotel to the gym and was put through his paces to learn choreography, was bent over with his hands on his knees and breathing heavily.

“When you’re ready, make a few laps to cool down. Then lunch.” Sam patted Richard again. “And Jason’s got you for the afternoon.”

Richard nodded, but didn’t want to waste his breath responding. After five minutes, Richard straightened and Sam helped him to remove the heavy bullet-proof vest he was wearing. Sam had Richard wear the vest so that Richard could get used to the weight and the way it restricted certain movements. Sam walked off with the vest and Richard made his first lap around the gym. One the second lap, Jason jumped off his treadmill and joined Richard.

“You don’t listen to music?” Richard asked.

Jason shook his head. “Running music is for those who can’t handle being left alone with their thoughts. How FUBAR is that?” He scoffed, not caring that his comment was mildly offensive. “You can’t even handle your own thoughts.”

 _How FUBAR is that?_ A small tugged at the corners of Richard’s lips. _Dan said the exact same line. I have to ask her if she knows Jason when I see her tomorrow_.

Richard and Jason made two more laps in silence before getting lunch. Lunch was nothing special, but it had all the carbohydrates, sugar, and protein Richard needed to get through the rest of the day’s training. The training consisted of a few hours of general fitness, a few hours of hand-to-hand combat, and an hour of firearms.

\---

Richard’s lips curled up into a smile when he saw Jason un-holster his gun from the small of his back. It was a SIG Sauer, the same make as Dan’s except without the fancy modifications.

“You familiar with the SIG?” Jason asked, seeing Richard’s smile.

Richard nodded and repeated what Dan had said to him on his first day. “It’s nothing fancy, but it’s very dependable. And because the SIG Sauer is used internationally, you will always recognize the feel of the gun.”

Jason nodded, impressed with Richard’s words even though they weren’t his own. “I guess I won’t have to lecture you.” He handed the gun over. “Let’s see what you got.”

Richard stepped into the lane and rolled his shoulders. He stood with his left foot in front of his right, his torso directed towards the target. Richard held the gun with both hands and aimed. He let himself settle in the stance that Dan had taught him. He took a few deep breaths to clear his mind, then he pulled the trigger.

Jason stood just off Richard’s shoulder, like Dan did, checking his lines.

When the magazine was empty, in a fluid motion, Richard thumbed the release for the magazine clip with his right hand and spun a fresh magazine clip lying on the counter into the slot with his left hand.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” Jason asked.

“From… uh,” he hesitated. _What is Dan to me? How much am I even allowed to say about Dan? Am I even allowed to tell people that I am working at DARPA?_ Based on Dan’s response yesterday to him taking a selfie, he wasn’t entirely sure.

Jason’s brows furrowed just slightly as he regarded Richard.

 _Well, that explains where his permanent furrow comes from_ , Richard thought.

“From my friend,” Richard said awkwardly. “She’s got quite the knack for guns.”

Jason relaxed his brows. “A pretty girl who knows her way around guns? Sounds like my kind of woman. I think I’m in love.”

“Down, boy,” Richard threw back.

“She yours?”

Richard blushed slightly. “Not yet.” He didn’t know why he said that. Dan was an intellectually and physically attractive woman, but Richard had no intention of dating her. Or at least no intentions that he openly acknowledged to himself.

Jason made an amused expression at Richard. “Well, if your seduction game is as good as your shooting…” Jason grimaced. “GLHF. Good luck, have fun.”

“My shooting isn’t that bad.”

Jason made a noncommittal noise. “There’s definitely room for improvement.”

\---

The next morning, Richard’s body protested Sam’s and Jason’s intense training regime by being incredibly sore. Everything hurt and Richard was not a happy man about it, but his mood lightened just a fraction when he saw the DARPA travel mug waiting of him on his desk. He dropped himself into his chair and let out a big sigh.

Richard and Dan worked in silence and independently for the first hour they were together.

“You okay?” Dan asked when she put her pen down, emerging from her typical early morning moodiness. She finished off her tea.

“Dan, you ought to meet the guy who is doing my combat training.” Richard replied. “You know what? If he was a woman, he’d be you.”

“Really?” She turned in her chair to face Richard.

“Really. Acronym slinging included. He even used one of your lines: How FUBAR is that?” Richard massaged his thighs. _How FUBAR indeed_ , Richard thought with a silent laugh at the double use of the phrase in his sentence. “I bet you two would get along perfectly.”

“Who’s this?”

“Jason McAllister? He’s exactly what you would expect a Navy man to look at act.”

Dan sat back in her chair and laughed. “Oh! He sounds like my kind of man. I think I’m in love.”

“Yeah?” Even though Richard knew they were joking around, his stomach still did a nervous flip as if he was disappointed in Dan’s response.

Dan shrugged and gave Richard her best megawatt smile. “You’re great and all, Hollywood. But I like my men straight shooting and clean shaven.” She winked at Richard.

Richard leaned forward. “You know what? I’m convinced you two are soulmates. He had the exact same response when I said you taught me to how to use a SIG.”

“That he likes his men straight shooting and clean shaven?”

Richard laughed. “No. ‘She sounds like my kind of woman. I think I’m in love.’ Are you sure you don’t know Jason?”

Dan ignored Richard’s question. “You want to show me what they taught you? Moving around will help with the soreness. I’ll even teach you a few tricks to dazzle Jason.” Dan stood up. “Then it’s B-to-B with the physics problems. And if I finish, I’ll show you the really cool simulation I’ve been working on.”

\---

“What you need to learn is this.” Dan and Richard were standing in the middle of the testing warehouse. She had broken down an older SIG Sauer model into two parts: the slide and the stock. Dan placed the slide between her feet, with her left foot ahead of her right. She held the stock in her right hand.

“When you’ve run out of bullets, you can us the gun itself as a weapon. I’m aiming for the two toolboxes over there.” She rolled her shoulders. “Ready?”

Richard nodded.

If he blinked, he would have missed it. Dan tossed the stock of the gun high into the air and rainbow kicked the slide of the gun over her head. She roundhouse forward kicked the slide, touched her foot to the ground for just a second and then roundhouse back kicked the stock. Both pieces hit their targets with a solid thud.

Richard’s mouth dropped open. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“My ex.”

“And where did he learn to do that?”

“Beats me. You’ll have to ask him.”


	7. A Little Separation

There were several pings as Richard’s mobile phone reconnected with the cellular network. A few hours after leaving DARPA, Richard had been taken to the airport and boarded an overnight flight to Los Angeles. He was there to attend the premiere of and promote _Electric Love_ , a romantic comedy that he had completed a little over a year ago.

Richard had five unread text messages and three unread emails. Richard glanced at the names of who had sent text messages: two from the studio, one from his agent, and one from a new number. Richard read the message from the new number first.

_Remember DARPA Rule #1. DAN_

Richard couldn’t help the small smile on his lips. The message wasn’t funny, but it was his first text message from Dan. That made is special in its own right. Richard saved the number into his contacts and replied.

_Of course. Wouldn’t want to face your wrath again._

As the plane continued to taxi, Richard read through his other messages. He called his agent to let her know he had landed, just like her text message had asked of him; she highlighted the main points he needed to know for exiting the airport without drawing too much attention.

Richard held his phone in his hand as he was ushered through the airport and to a waiting car; he was expecting a reply message from Dan and didn’t want to miss it. _Come on_ , Richard pleaded, tapping his phone on his knee and still waiting for a reply message. _You have to respond to that, Dan._

Richard didn’t get a response until several hours later, waking him up from an uneasy sleep. He had been tossing and turning in bed, caught somewhere between excitement and apprehension for the press circus.

 _At least I’ll have justification for your disappearance. GLHV_.

_Good luck, have fun._

_Aw, how sweet._

_And Jason dropped that one on me. I should keep track of who drops the most._

_Doesn’t need to be a competition. I embrace it ‘cause I can stop explaining myself._

_BTW, shouldn’t you be in bed?_

_Yay! Your first acronym. And who says I’m not?_

_Let me rephrase. Shouldn’t you be sleeping?_

_I don’t sleep._

_What about yourself?_

_Can’t._

_You’re a vampire?_

__Ghost._ _

_Great. I’m being haunted by a ghost._

_I wouldn’t consider it “haunting” if you’re enjoying yourself._

_Who said I was enjoying myself? Physics sucks._

_Take it back._

_No._

_Take it back. Or there will be consequences._

_You wouldn’t dare. You love me too much._

_That’s up for interpretation._

_ILY._

Unlike with her previous texts, Dan didn’t respond right away. _Fuck_ , he thought. It was supposed to a joke; it had been funny when he said it in his head. _Delivery is always different over text_. Richard mentally kicked himself. _I hope she doesn’t take it the wrong way._

Richard sat up and on the edge of the bed, a slight feeling of panic building up in his chest. _Well, shit_. He put his phone down on the mattress next to him. He realized that were was a teeny-tiny nugget of truth in his last text message. He was developing feelings for Dan.

 _I’m just lonely,_ he told himself. _It’s been a long while and I’m just lonely. And my competitive edge came out because of all this talk about her ex and Jason making comments. Nope. I don’t like her that way. I’m just confused because I miss having female friends who can flirt with me without it being sexual._

_Yup. That’s it. I just miss having friends around and Dan’s the closest I’ve got to one right now._

Richard looked down at his phone when it made a ping. It was a response from Dan; he sharply sucked in his breath and hastily punched in his passcode. His eyes riveted on the acronym and he let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding.

_LYT._

Richard didn’t need to look the acronym up: love you, too.

 _Fuck_ , Richard thought. _Did Dan get the joke? Or does she means this in seriousness because she thought I meant it seriousness?_ Richard shook his head. _No, she wouldn’t go for a guy like me. It’s just a joke. But nonetheless, I quite like seeing it._

_\---_

“And your current project? What can audiences be looking forward to?” the interviewer asked.

“I’m currently working on an action/drama about military engineers.” Richard shrugged and adjusted his tie. “I can’t stay too much at this time, but I can tell you that I am getting my arse kicked.” He laughed. “The physical training is brutal and I’m apparently not as clever as I thought I was.”

“What do you mean?”

“Physics is very difficult.”

“Ah, but I’m sure you’ll be fine. Anyway, thank you for taking the time to chat with us. I’m very excited to see you returning to us as a badass spy!”

“Thank you.” Richard shook hands with the interviewer and continued his way down the red carpet.

\---

“Who’s the lucky lady?” Richard’s friend asked. He approached the brooding actor and threw his arm around his shoulders. He waved down a passing waiter and shoved a drink into Richard's hand.

“What?”

“You keep checking your phone, hoping for something. And you get this disappointed look when you don't get whatever if it is you’re hoping for. I’m guessing you met a pretty lady.”

 _So much for the rationalization last night,_ Richard thought. _Apparently my little crush is written all over my face._ Dan and Richard hadn’t exchanged a text since last night, but he still couldn’t help hoping every message he received was a witty comment from her. Richard chuckled and played off his unease. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“That’s right! You’re doing that military internship thing. How’s that going?”

“So far, really well.” Richard threw back the rest of his alcoholic beverage. “I don’t know if what they are doing really needs to be as clandestine as they’re making it, or if they’re doing it for my benefit to get into character.”

“It could be both.”

“Maybe.”

His friend gave him a wolfish grin. “You know what they say, you have to but the ‘us’ in ‘trust’!” He laughed.

Richard made a skeptical frown at his friend. “You made that up.”

His friend shrugged. “Admit it. It was a good line.”

\---

Richard arrived back in Arlington on Sunday afternoon. He napped for a few hours, then was up for dinner. After dinner he was too restless to go back to sleep, so he took the time to finish all the physics problems that Clive had given him on the first day of his DARPA internship. It took the help of Google, but Richard was immensely satisfied with himself for finishing the assignment.

However, Richard was still too restless to sleep. Pulling a black, leather-bound journal from his backpack, he worked on his character’s biography. It had slowly morphed into a biography about Dan and Richard was once again confronted with the fact that he knew her and nothing about her at the same time.

And Richard was still too restless. He couldn’t stop thinking about Dan and her mysterious past, so Richard thought it might be a good idea to channel some of his frustration into practicing lines.

“Don’t you fucking lie to me,” Richard growled to himself in a very deep voice into the mirror. He tried his best to emulate Dan when she had lost her temper at him the other day; he tried to physically intimidate himself the way she did him.

Richard brought himself up to his full height, shoulders straight. He glared at himself and repeated the line. “Don’t you fucking lie to me.” He emphasized the statement by contorting his face in a snarl. It was better, but not quite right.

_Maybe I should do it sitting down?_

Richard pulled a chair over and sat down, his right ankle propped on top of his left knee. He went for something more aristocratic this time around. He looked down his nose and said in a deep, disinterested tone, “Don’t you fucking lie to me.” It wasn’t right. It was terrifying, but it was out of character. 

Richard ran his hand through his hair, not satisfied enough and not tired enough to give up. Then it occurred to him that he should ask Dan for help. He hastily got to his feet and retrieved his phone from the nightstand. He absentmindedly tapped the fingers of his left hand on his thigh as he waited for Dan to pick up her phone.

“Nguyen,” Dan said as she answered her phone.

“Don’t you answer your phone like a normal person?”

“Sorry.” She cleared her throat. “Hello? Why don’t you reply to greetings on the phone like a normal person?”

Richard laughed. “I was wondering if we could take a few hours tomorrow to work on some of my lines. I want to get the right cadence to them. I have a few different ideas after talking to the director last night, but you’re the ultimate expert.”

“I’m no expert when it comes to acting. There’s a reason I’m in my line of work. But sure.”

“Oh, I also wanted to let you know I finished that damned physics packet.” Richard didn’t want to hang up right away. He had missed Dan’s presence and the distinct sound, high and sharp quality of her voice. Clive had once joked it sounded like a screech owl being tortured.

“Good,” she purred back.

“Thank you.”

“Try to get some rest. Tomorrow is back to the grind.”

Richard made a noncommittal noise. “I prefer it over the media circus.” Dan didn’t respond in the way she didn’t respond to things when she didn’t have anything insightful to say, so Richard filled in the empty space with an awkward, “See you tomorrow.”

He could hear Dan nod from her end of the line. “Good night.” She hung up first.


	8. Day 8, morning

Whatever excitement Richard had for coming to work that morning suddenly evaporated when he saw the fresh packet of homework problems and the well-thumbed calculus textbook sitting on his desk. At least there was a travel mug full of hot tea waiting for him on his desk, as well.

“What’s this?” Richard asked, holding up the textbook and taking a sip of his tea.

Dan held up her left index finger, indicating she needed to reach a break point in her work before engaging in conversation. Richard waited in silence for two and a half minutes, watching her work. He noticed that her expression kept changing as she solved some of the easier or harder parts of the massive equation.

Finally, Dan put her pen down, swiveled in her chair, and crossed her arms over her chest. She leaned back in her seat and regarded Richard with a similar attitude to addressing a petulant child.

“Unfortunately, the universe doesn’t operate solely on steady-state physics, which is basically what you’ve been working on. Simple plug-and-chug algebraic equations.” Dan offered a wicked, crooked smile. Richard was torn between wanting to kiss her and wanting to slap the smile from her face. “You’re going to learn some very basic calc, so you can then learn to solve basic physics with calc, and then hopefully make yourself a little more useful around here.”

“I hate you.”

Dan laughed. “I thought you loved me?”

Richard rolled his eyes. “Not anymore.”

“I’m hurt. But if your love is that fickle, I don’t want it.”

“You’re cruel.”

“Took you this long to figure that out?” Dan laughed again and gave him a big smile. “Stop pouting! Don’t they make you take pre-calc in high school? Or secondary school as they call it in the UK? It’s really easy shit.”

Richard grimaced. “There’s a reason I’m in my profession.”

Dan waved off the comment and pushed herself in her chair over to Richard’s desk. “Don’t worry, you’re just calculating derivatives and integrals. Really simple.” She patted his empty seat. “And I promise I’ll just show you how to do the steps. I’m leaving Winters to lecture you about the theory when I’m not around.”

Richard raised a very, very skeptical eyebrow at Dan, who continued to smile brightly up at him. He slowly lowered himself into his chair and settle himself at the desk, the first question of the packet glaring at him. _Why did I agree to this internship again?_ he wondered. _Because I thought it would be all fun and explosions. Well, I guess this is the DARPA version of fun_. Richard mentally flinched when he thought about Winters’ upcoming lectures; the man had become even more long-winded with his unending supply of dick jokes.

Richard was snapped back to reality when he smelled a gentle combination lilac and lavender. He looked down his nose at Dan, who had leaned across to pull the packet of homework problems towards them. If it weren’t for the fact that there were armrests on the chairs, she would practically be sitting on his left leg. Richard had a sharp intake of breath and his heart raced.

If she noticed Richard’s reaction, Dan didn’t make a physical or verbal response. Brandishing her own pen, she said, “First, a little background. A function, typically denoted f(x), is any mathematical equation. We use x to denote the variable of interest; we would replace x with a number of interest when solving the equation. We use the notation d/dx to indicate we are taking a derivative with respect to x. A derivative is a fundamental tool of calculus used to determine a function’s sensitivity to change.” As she lectured, Dan made little notes in her sharp handwriting for Richard. “You can replace x with any symbol: letter or otherwise. If we use the notation f(y) then we will replaced all the y’s in the equation; d/dy indicates that we are taking a derivative with respect to y. You still with me?”

Richard nodded slowly.

“Good. You had this flat look in your eyes.”

“You’re killing me.”

“Isn’t that you’re supposed to do? Kill ‘em with kindness.”

“This isn’t kindness.”

Dan furrowed her brows and looked up at Richard, even sitting down he was still taller than her. “I’m educating you. Tutoring a painfully dull student requires lots of kindness.”

Richard laughed. “Shut up.”

“In the first problem, we see f(x) = x^4. Then we see d/dx f(x). Substitute f(x) with the equation and you get d/dx x^4.” Dan wrote the new equation down. “In general the derivative of any power function is the power minus 1 times the original value of the power function. In this example, the answer is 4x^3.” Dan wrote the new equation down. “You get the 4 because the original function was to the 4th power. Then the power changes to be one less than what it was. You still with me?”

“And what happens if there is no power?”

“Then the answer is 0 because nothing is there. So what would be the second derivative?”

“The second derivative?”

“You can take infinitely many derivatives of any function. Going from x^4 to 4x^3 is the first derivative because it was the first one we did. The second derivative would be the second one we take of the same function. So if you take the derivative of 4x^3, what do you get?”

“3x^2?”

“You still have to multiple your answer with the 4. The coefficient just doesn’t go away.”

“12x^2.”

Dan threw her hands up in celebration and bumped shoulders with Richard. “Very good! Now do the rest of them. The whole first page is like what we’ve done together. The second page has equations for special and more complex cases.”

Dan stood up and pushed her chair back to her desk, but didn’t sit down again.

“Wait? Where are you going?” Richard asked.

“I have to attend a meeting that you do not have security clearance to attend. Sorry.”

“How long?”

Dan shrugged. “It’s supposed to be 90 minutes. But sometimes we get distracted and take a little longer. Oh! And I almost forgot; there’s a packet of gold star stickers on my desk. Give yourself one because you are my little shining star.” She winked at Richard and walked away.

Thankfully, Dan had been looking away when she called Richard her “little shining star.” Richard blushed slightly and licked his lips. Which each minute around Dan, his crush on her got a little bigger and bigger. _I should take a derivative of my heart to see how fast my crush gets bigger._ Richard let out a laugh at how ridiculous the thought was. _I’ve got 90 minutes to impress her; let’s see how many of these problems I can actually solve._

_\---_

After locking the door to her office, Avery slipped a headset over her ears and logged into the CIA mainframe. She accessed the teleconference application and was brought to a screen where live video feeds of Kevin and Jason were broadcast to her. A live feed of herself was being broadcast back to them, as well.

“Ghostrider checking in,” she announced.

“Welcome to the party,” Jason replied.

Unbeknownst to Richard, his combat trainer Jason McAllister was actually a CIA field agent, codenamed Vortex. Jason specialized in naval affairs and was the nephew of CIA division lead Kevin McAllister. When Avery had requested Jason as her tactical support for the Malaysia intelligence recon assignment, he had been assigned to train Richard. If needed, Avery and Jason could use their mutual association with Richard to meet and excuse information in public.

“How’s your tourist?” Kevin asked. “Still ‘alright’?”

Avery chuckled. “Uh-huh. Hollywood is a good man.”

“He’s got a crush on you the size of Texas,” Jason said.

“I know,” Avery replied. “It’s kind of cute.”

“Just be careful, Ghostrider,” Jason replied. “Don’t go breaking his heart.”

Before Avery could make a reply, an unfamiliar voice announced, “Falcon checking in.” Avery’s screen reorganized so that the faces of the three men were the same size and arranged in a triangle. The newcomer had dark hair in a classic cut with a side part, a boyish and round face, a sharp nose, and dark brown eyes.

“Ghostrider, this is Falcon. He’s the newest operative on Jester and will be accompanying you to Malaysia. You should be receiving a dossier on him in a moment.” An icon appeared in the top right hand corner of Avery’s screen and she opened it. She quickly scanned the contents.

Myles Terrence. Recent graduate from CIA field training at 28, with very high scores in foreign languages and civilian infiltration.

 “Welcome to the team.” Avery leaned back in her seat.

“Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be working with the legendary Ghostrider,” Myles said.

Avery let out a harsh laugh. “Whoever is spreading through rumors needs to be stopped. Make it priority 1.”

“I’ve been studying your work. You are the original agent on Jester; I came up with the legendary part because you pulled off some really batshit crazy shit.”

“I suppose a ‘thank you’ is in order. And don’t spread it.”

“Okay.”

“Three days from now, you three will be on a plane to Malaysia,” Kevin said, steering the conversation back to its original purpose. “Ghostrider will be investigating a special arms trade deal, determining how Jester factors into this deal. She will pose as a foreign ambassador and Falcon will be her personal assistant. I received a heads-up from MI-6, their guy Bonesaw will also be there because the arms being traded are of British origin.”

Avery couldn’t help the small smile that formed on her lips. She had worked with Bonesaw on multiple occasions before and quite liked the man.

“You are not to engage Bonesaw unless absolutely necessary. He is operating on the same paradigm. If the mission is compromised, and it won’t be, we want to make sure that nothing ties the CIA to MI-6.” Kevin cleared his throat.

“This is a simple mission. You get in, play around for a day, then you get out. Here are the persons of interest…” Kevin continued the briefing in his typical efficient way for another 30 minutes. “Any questions?” There was a pause and everyone looked at each other through their screens. “Good. In two days you have team cohesion training. HQ gun range, 13:00.”

“What?” Avery and Jason asked at the same time.

“It’s Falcon’s first field assignment; I want you to get to know him and welcome him to the club. And… he needs to know how to keep you two from murdering each other.” The statement felt like a slap in the face to Avery and Jason.

“Excuse me?” Avery laughed to deflect how awkward she felt about Kevin bringing the topic up. “Why would we do that?”

“I don’t know,” Jason replied flatly. “Maybe because there are still some residual hard feelings.”

“You can’t be serious,” Avery replied. The glare she received from Jason’s feed indicated otherwise. “So you’re giving us the baby we never had in an attempt to keep us together. Nice, Alleycat.”

“You requested Vortex. It’s my job to ensure the mission won’t fail; Falcon is one of those checks.” A flicker of surprise and confusion crossed Jason’s face; he didn’t know that Avery had specifically requested him on the mission. Myles wasn’t sure whether to be offended or honored that he was being used to settle an intimate argument between Avery and Jason; he decided to go with the latter and the corner of his mouth turned up into a slight smile.

“Don’t be late to training,” Kevin continued.

“Copy that, Alleycat,”Avery replied.

“Yes, Sir,” Myles replied.

“Affirmative,” Jason replied.

“Very good,” Kevin announced. “This concludes briefing.”

\---

“The good news is that you did the entire first page correctly,” Dan said as she placed a gold star sticker on the first page of Richard’s packet.

“Do you really have to patronize me with the gold star stickers?”

“You should see the way your face lights up at the GSS.” She flipped the page. “The bad news is that you completely butchered the second page.” Dan gave Richard a conciliatory pat on the shoulder. “We’ll take a break from physics, talk about your character, go shooting, and then work on some more physics. If you behave, I’ll take you to dinner. Sound good?”

Richard nodded and leaned back in his seat. “Sounds great. Grab your seat.”

Dan maneuvered her seat in position next to Richard. Richard pulled his script from his backpack and held it out to Dan. “Now remember, this is top secret,” he said before placing it in her hands.

Dan laughed and placed the script in her lap. “Good thing for you, I’m an excellent secret keeper.” Settling down in her chair, she placed her feet on Richard’s lap and crossed her legs. Dan knew that Richard had a crush on her and that flirting would only make it worse. But Dan hadn’t had so much fun with another person, besides Clive, in two years. Dan had been craving the banter and easy demeanor she had with Richard.

“Tell me about your character.”

“Alex Winchester. Brilliant, resourceful, and ruthless military engineer. He joined the Navy right out of high school and has been in active service ever since. Alex was deployed four times in the Middle East before going to back to school for his ME degree.”

Dan nodded, following along.

“He’s married, but no children. He suffers from borderline PTSD and he doesn’t even realize it. One of the major plot points is that his wife is having an affair with one of his co-workers and his co-worker uses her to leak information to the enemy. She has a suspicion that she’s being played, but she’s too smitten to think too deeply about it. Alex becomes totally unhinged from reality and shit goes down.”

Richard exhaled and placed a hand on Dan’s ankles. “My character’s personality is a combination of the intensity of Lucas North from _Spooks_ and the skills of John Porter from _Strike Back_.” He met Dan’s eyes. “Or the male version of you.”

Dan scoffed and clasped her hands behind her head. “Does every man you meet remind you of me? Last week you were telling me I was your combat trainer.”

“I can’t help that you project a certain type of masculine personality. Anyway, there was a line I was working on last night that made me think of you. It’s the scene where my character, Alex, gets his wife to confess that she had been sleeping with the co-worker.”

“And this made you think of me because…?”

Richard laughed, realizing how terrible his comment sounded. “Honestly, the way you flipped out on me when I took a selfie with the railgun. Despite your size and your general disposition, you were absolutely terrifying. If you flip to the page with the corner folded down, that’s the scene.”

Dan read over the scene. “Alex always been suspicious of his wife, right? And what’s his relationship like with his co-worker?”

“Yes. And strained, but functional.”

“Does he feel threatened?”

“I don’t think so. I think he’s more upset about the fact that his wife is leaking information over his wife being an adulteress with a man he doesn’t like.”

“What’s Alex’s state of mind when this scene happens?”

“It’s where he first starts to go crazy.”

“So completely normal up until this point.”

Richard thought about it. “No, he’s been slipping for a few months now. I’d say this is the point where he throws his hands up and declares fuck it all. Alex ends up shooting her a few scenes later.”

Dan nodded and stood up. Richard rose to his feet and Dan handed him his script back. “Can you read me the wife’s speech and signal me when it’s my line?”

Richard cleared his throat and pitched his voice into a falsetto. “What do you want me to say, Alex? We both know I can say that I’m sorry, but it’s not enough. You are always gone for work and I was so lonely… He was charming and there for me. He asked me a favor and I couldn’t say no because he had filled a hole in my heart.”

Richard made a slight gesture, like a very brief two-fingered salute from the shoulder, at Dan.

Dan focused her entire attention on Richard’s eyes. She walked over to Richard and leaned into his personal space, her lips just millimeters from Richard’s ear; he could feel her warmth breath and he had to fight the urge to giggle and how her breath tickled him. Richard eyes followed her, looking at her from out of the furthest corners because he didn’t want to turn his head. Dan continued to look directly back at him.

Very slowly, her voice sweet and soft, and with one corner of her mouth turned up, Dan said, “Don’t you fucking lie to me.” Dan’s hand was shaped as a gun and she pressed her fingertips into the soft right upper quadrant of his belly. Richard hadn’t noticed her hand had moved because he was so focused on her eyes.

Richard felt his spine go rigid as a tingle shot up it.

Dan relaxed, took a step back, and cocked her head slightly to the right. “Was that what you were looking for? Too much out of context?”

“They should have cast you as Alex,” Richard breathed. _Dan's testing how far that betrayal as gone. Dan's having Alex literally play with his wife to see how much she’s cracked._ _Damn. The scenario is so fucked up, yet so perfectly delightful._


	9. Day 8, Evening

Clive was balancing a box in one arm and checking his phone with his other hand when he walked into the EMWD warehouse. He glanced up from his phone and he forgot how to breathe. Richard was on his knees, squirming wildly and clawing at the arms around his neck. Dan was standing behind him, taking the beating from his flailing limbs, with her arms wrapped around Richard’s neck in a chokehold.

“AVERY!” Clive yelled. He threw the box and his phone down onto his desk as he ran past it. He easily pulled Dan off Richard and wrapped her up in his arms. “Avery, it’s okay,” Clive said. His voice had a soothing tone, but was shaking. “You’re okay. You’re home. The Palestinians aren’t coming for you here.”

Dan was completely limp in Clive’s arms. “What?” she asked. There was no anger or fear or panic in her voice; her eyes were completely clear. Richard was already on his feet, breathing normally.

Clive sighed heavily and let Dan go. “I thought you were going to murder your tourist.” He rolled his eyes and carded his hand through his hair. “Don’t fucking scare me like that!”

Dan laughed, realizing how the scene must have looked to Clive. “No! Hollywood wanted to practice some lines.”

Clive shook his head. “Whatever. I brought lunch for you two wankers.” Clive walked to his desk and unpacked the three take-out paper bags with the logo of Dan’s favorite hamburger joint printed on theme from the box. “They specifically labeled yours ‘For the Black Hole.’”

Dan pulled her chair over to Clive’s desk and accepted the bag from Clive. “Thanks for lunch, Winters.” Without waiting for the two men to get situated and without any ceremony, Dan began to inhale her lunch. Richard was, however, a more polite and ate at the same leisurely pace as Clive.

“Oh!” Dan exclaimed, swallowing her last handful of French fries. “In two days, I’m being deployed short-term.”

Richard choked on his bite of hamburger and Dan reached over to hit him on the back. “What do you mean you’re being deployed?” Richard roared in surprise. “Where? Why? How long? Was that what the meeting was for? WILL THEY BE SHOOTING AT YOU?” Dan was startled by Richard’s response. His voice had dropped an octave and there was legitimate concern written all over his face. His eyes stared hard at her, confused and panicked.

“CTFD,” Dan said, slowly setting her lunch down on Clive’s desk. She held hands up in front of her, her palms facing Richard. She looked directly back into Richard’s blue eyes with her own brown ones. She treated him as if taming a wild and terrified animal. “Calm the fuck down, Richard,” she said gently. “It’s okay.”

Dan cleared her throat. “When the Navy needs someone to scope out new EMW technology, they send me because I’m the expert. Don’t worry, no one will be shooting at me. I can’t tell you anything else. Remember DARPA Rule #2.”

 _Don’t ask questions you don’t need to know the answers to_ , Richard remembered. He opened his mouth to say something, but Dan cut him off. “And no, you can’t come with me.”

“You’re always leaving me behind.” Richard pouted.

“Next time you can tag along.”

“Promise?”

Dan sighed and held out her right hand to shake with Richard. “Promise.”

Having known Dan for seven years, Clive knew that it was not usual for the Navy to deploy her for missions; they ranged anywhere from three days to two years. When Dan first started at DARPA, he and she had been sent on a handful together. “How long?” Clive asked. He knew that of all the highly sensitive information, that was the only thing she could tell him.

“Four days, should be back Sunday evening. Should I call back-up?”

Clive chuckled and leaned back in chair, relieved that Dan’s mission would indeed be a short-term one. She had been sent on a handful of them since coming back from Palestine and she seemed to tolerate the short-term missions well. “Nope. I can hold the fort for four days.”

She balled her trash up and tossed it into the trashcan. “Anyway, Hollywood, after tomorrow you don’t have to come in for the rest of the week, if you don’t want to. Winters will let you tag along with him, but I think you should take the SUV and go home.”

“Go home?”

“We’re about 4 hours out from NYC. Take a break. Sip some wine while taking a bubble bath.”

Clive snorted. “Sorry. I have a funny picture of Hollywood in my head right now.”

“You’re a perv. You know that?”

“My wife died. No one takes care of my needs.”

“FUCK!” Dan cried over, her hands flying up to cover her face. “Snowfall was my best friend. I did not need to see that. And it now can’t be unseen.”

“Shut up. It’s not like I didn’t get more than an eyeful of you and Vortex.”

Dan stared at Clive through the cracks in her fingers. “Not cool.”

“Sorry, that was not cool.” Clive held up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry.”

Dan rose to her feet and pushed her chair back to her desk. “I need to get out of here before I put a bullet in your brain. Thanks again for lunch.” She reached into a drawer and strapped a thigh holster onto her right leg. She pulled out her modified SIG Sauer and holstered it. “You coming, Hollywood?”

“Yeah,” Richard replied as he pushed his chair back to his desk.

“But will you be there?”

Dan and Richard simultaneously groaned.

“Is he always this bad?” Richard asked.

“Isn’t there are saying that the most timid men are the kinkiest in bed?” Dan replied.

“I’m only this bad when I’m around beautiful women. Or on Mondays.” Clive glanced down at his watch. “And today is Monday.”

\---

“What?” Dan shouted over the loud clatter of the British SA80 she was practicing with. Richard had no idea where she got that rifle from, as he hadn’t seen it before in her arsenal; but he couldn’t say he was surprised that Dan owned one. Dan had her M16A4 Navy rifle slung over her shoulder and her SIG Sauer still holstered on her right thigh.

“I want your opinion on this,” Richard shouted back. His mind was still focused on the script, so he had declined to practice with Dan. He sat on a bench a few feet away, writing in notes for himself about his character.

Dan emptied the magazine into her targets before lowering the rifle and pulling her earmuffs off. “On what?”

Richard handed the script over and pointed at a massive monologue his character made. “Where do the breaks go?”

“If you want something genuine, my advice is to listen to the way Winters talks.”

“That man doesn’t breathe when he talks.”

“Exactly.”

“If you were to put in breaks, where would they go?”

Dan cleared her throat and read, “Now consider the processes occurring within turbulent systems, break, with particular reference to the two mixers. One as a steady state system, break, in which two input streams enter a system of fixed geometry at constant rates. The other as an unsteady state system, break, in which two initially stationary, break, segregated, break, miscible fluids are mixed, break, by turning an impeller at a constant angular velocity, break, starting at time t=0. Make the proper assumptions, break, and the behavior of the solute in either system, break, can be described by the non-time-smoothed diffusion equations.” Every time she said break, she made a slash between the words before and after the break.

“Thanks,” Richard said, taking the script back from Dan.

She gave him a small smile before returning to her land and replacing the magazine with a swift movement and a snap. She replaced her targets and put her earmuffs back on. Dan paused for a moment, steeling her mind to her task. Then she swung her rifle up to her shoulder and unloaded the entire magazine in one go.

Richard watched from his, noticing the change that had come over Dan as she completed her practice exercise. _Huh_ , Richard thought. _It was like she had flipped a switch. She radiates a sense of… deadliness? It’s the cold, calculating violence mindset. I got the same sort feeling like when she caught me taking a selfie with a railgun. Except I’m not afraid this time because her attention isn’t on me._

Richard reached into his backpack and pulled out his diary. He reviewed the notes that he had scribbled about Dan’s personal history.

_Clive had said, “The Palestinians aren’t coming for you here.” That has to mean that she was deployed to Israel and Palestine. That has to mean the story about her scar is true. I can’t imagine why she would make up something like that. Yeah, she has a bad sense of humor, but I think she just used that as a convenient excuse since we just met._

_She probably has borderline PTSD. It could explain why she insists on practicing firearms every day. It’s not for the military; it’s for her to let off steam._

_But why would they kidnap her? Because of her expertise with EMW? That’s a possibility, but I can’t image why they would want to capture, let alone torture, some engineer._

“How upset would you be if we skipped straight to dinner?”

Richard hastily snapped his diary closed and shoved it into his backpack so Dan couldn’t see what he was writing about her. “Dinner?” He glanced at his watch; it was only 17:30 and much too early to eat dinner.

“Or do you prefer going back to calculus?”

“I would be delighted if we skipped straight to dinner,” Richard replied. He was not particularly keen on burrowing his nose in the calculus textbook.

Dan started to peel off and put away all of her equipment. Like last time, she had no reservations about peeling off her t-shirt shirt and putting an identical, clean one on. Richard was more discreet about looking at the scars on her right collarbone and shoulder.

“Why did you wear the SIG and Navy rifle if you weren’t planning to us them?” Richard asked as he climbed into the passenger’s seat of the SUV.

“It’s about returning of a mindset. The weight of the guns helps me remember what it was like.” Dan nodded to herself, but didn’t elaborate. “Let’s go eat.”

\---

“Do you mind driving?” Dan asked after dinner as they walked across the parking lot. “I need to make a few phone calls because I promised you could join me on my next trip.”

Richard shook his head and swiped his DARPA badge across the driver’s side door handle. The electrical locks chirped as they disengaged and Richard couldn’t help the smile at how cool he felt to have this sort of technology at his disposal. He slid into the driver’s seat and adjusted the chair and mirrors to accommodate his height.

Dan had her phone pressed to her ear, waiting for whomever it was on the other end. When the person didn’t pick up, she shot off a text message. Then she dialed a different number.

“Hi, Connie,” Dan purred happily when the person answered. “I want to ship my tourist.” Dan tapped her hand on her thigh, listening to the voice on the other end.

“We had a T2 Frac1, but it was unintentional.” _Richard broke the first rule of DARPA secrecy on day 2. But it was an accident._

“Yeah.”

“Novice move from Hollywood. Spooks are still secure.” _Richard isn’t used to the game of secrecy; he probably was very excited about the internship and wanted to share his excitement. I wouldn’t worry._

“Can you come my way, T1?” _Can you come to DARPA tomorrow?_

“Thanks. You’re the best, Connie. TTYL.” _Talk to you later._

“Bye.”

“Who was that?” Richard asked, glancing away from the road towards Dan for a second. “She doesn’t get a nickname?”

Dan played with her phone and continued to tap her thigh. “Connie is her nickname. She pretends to act hoity-toity because it’s professional, hence she gets a boring, old person’s name.” Dan made air quotes with her hands when she said “professional” and “old person’s.” Dan stifled a giggle. “Dr. Cheryl Gallagher is my director of personnel. You have to get med clearance from her to come aboard Navy vessels with me. We have to ensure that you’re squeaky clean, and I don’t mean it in the proverbial sense.”

“I don’t follow.”

“That you’re not diseased.”

“Diseased?”

Dan grinned. “Just bring your big boy pants tomorrow because you’re going to get vaxxed.”

“What?”

“Vaccinated,” Dan said quickly before answering her phone. “I want to ship my tourist.”

“Yeah, chatted with Connie.”

“DARPA access should be transferable. He’s my duckling anyway.” _I think his clearance with DARPA should allow him clearance on the Navy ship. Besides, he’ll be following me around anyway and won’t be causing problems._

“He’ll behave.” Dan turned her head slightly towards Richard and mouthed, “Won’t you?” at him. Richard nodded. “Yeah, he said he’ll behave,” Dan said into her phone.

“You’re the guv, Lucky Strike,” Dan said. “TTYL.”


	10. A Bumpy Reunion

The following day passed in the usual manner: Richard showed up promptly at 08:00, Dan had tea waiting for him, and they worked quietly on their respective tasks until Dan was sociable enough to entertain Richard for the remainder of the day. Dan put Richard through his paces learning physics and calculus, they broke for lunch, and then she had him do menial tasks while she did more work.

As Dan finished writing a note stating that she and Richard had gone to the shooting range, a voluptuous Hispanic woman with shrewd, dark brown eyes and wavy black hair entered the EMWD testing warehouse. She looked a few years older than Dan and was a little shorter than Dan, but Richard had no doubt that the woman could kick his ass if she wanted to.

“Connie!” Dan said in a playful sing-song voice as she waltzed over to embrace her friend. “How are you?”

“I’m fine. Thank you,” Connie replied without smiling or hugging Dan back. “How many times do I have to tell you to act professional?”

Dan smirked; she knew how much her exaggerated cavalier attitude simultaneously irked and amused Connie. “I am acting professional! We both know I’m your favorite and that your hoity-toity persona is a big, fat lie. You’re as cracked as the rest of us.”

Connie extracted herself from Dan’s embrace and scowled at Dan. “Alleycat needs to stop adopting rabid strays,” she replied as she put her medical equipment box down on Dan’s desk. _You have two PhDs and are McAllister’s top pick; behave like it for fuck’s sake._

Richard snorted at Connie’s response; although he didn’t understand the full meaning of Connie’s comment, he was fairly certain that “rabid stray” was in reference to Dan. Connie raised a questioning eyebrow at him and he said, “Dan is of a rather peculiar sort, but she’s still a person.”

Richard’s comment earned him an eye roll. “Don’t tell me you bite,” Connie said to Dan. _Don’t tell me you spread your craziness to the poor man. He fancies you._

“I didn’t bite you,” Dan replied with a big smile and she threw her arm around her friend’s shoulders. _I can’t help that people adore me, you included._

Connie sighed, knowing that Dan would keep the stupid conversation going forever if she let her. Connie out from under Dan’s arm and handed Richard a clipboard with a medical waiver attached to it. “I need you to sign this, Mr. Armitage,” she said. “It’s a standard waiver, stating that you agreed of your own free will to have your blood drawn and tested, and to be vaccinated.”

Richard’s hand stilled halfway through his signature. “Have my blood drawn and tested?”

“Yes,” Connie replied. “A handful of people do not develop the antibodies for vaccines given to them as children. We have to confirm that you are not one of those people.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Is there a problem, Mr. Armitage?”

Richard grimaced, but finished his signature. “No, not really. I’m not particularly fond of needles.”

“I will admit upfront that the vaccines will sting a little bit, Mr. Armitage. And you’ll be sore for a few days because you’re getting five shots,” Connie said gently to Richard with a hint of comfort in her voice as took the clipboard back from him. “But the blood draw is painless.”

Connie turned towards her equipment and Richard took a seat in Dan’s chair.

“You could have warned me,” Richard said to Dan.

Dan shrugged. “I told you to bring your big boy pants. Yeah, your dossier states you’re uncomfortable with needles, but it’s nothing you can’t handle.” Connie softly tskd as she prepped the blood collection tubes with labels, knowing Dan was just being Dan.

“Right of left arm?” Connie asked as she pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves.

“Left,” Dan said.

Dan knelt on Richard’s right. She took his right hand in hers and smiled gently at him. “Connie’s the best doc I know. Just look at me and think of something relaxing.” All of Dan’s silly playfulness was gone.

With deft hands, Connie tied the bright orange, elastic tourniquet around Richard’s left bicep. She poked a few times at his inside of his elbow, feeling out the veins. She cleaned the spot where she would insert the needle with a small alcohol prep wipe. “This won’t hurt. Poke in three… two… one.”

Richard reflexively clenched his left fist when the needle entered his arm. “Relax,” Dan said while she opened his fist with her free hand. Richard tried to turn his head to look at the needle in his arm, but Dan moved her hand up to hold his head in place. “Look at me, Richard,” Dan said.

 _You know she’s fucking serious when she uses your real name_ , Richard thought. He swallowed his nerves as he heard the click of Connie switching out the blood collection tubes. He looked into Dan’s honey brown eyes and thought of little bear cubs frolicking in the forest.

“What are you thinking about?” Dan asked when she noticed the change in his expression.

“Your eyes,” Richard replied, a slight blush creeping across his cheeks. “They are the color of honey and make me think of Winnie the Pooh.” He was not going to admit that he was actually thinking about bear cubs frolicking. _Frolicking. For fuck’s sake_.

“That’s cute. But let me assure you; I am anything but cute.”

Connie snorted; Dan and Richard turned their attention to her. “Unit GV19 was sickeningly cute. I used to get requests to scan your brains to ensure that you both weren’t crazy.”

“Unit GV19?” Richard asked.

“My ex and I used to be a special combat unit when I was active service,” Dan said. “I’ll admit we were totally smitten with each other. But I always had us pegged as the kicking-ass-and-taking-names type of power couple. Not as the romantic, cutesy type.”

“Not in the traditional sense. Remember when Vortex had that bullet-proof ball gown made for you? Believe me when I say that was super romantic.” Connie sighed fondly on the memories. “Ghostrider and Vortex. Those were the days, weren’t they, Dan?”

Dan nodded.

Even though Richard didn’t actually know that Jason was Vortex, Richard readily imagined Vortex as Jason. Dan and Jason were so alike that it wasn’t hard for him to imagine the two together. He imagined Dan and Jason fighting off an impossible swarm of enemies without breaking a sweat like in the espionage movies of old.

“I think we’ve distracted you well enough,” Connie said as she removed the tourniquet from Richard’s arm. She pulled out the needle and pressed a cotton ball to the site; then she used bright orange, self-adherent Coban to hold the cotton in place. “Now the shots.”

Richard nodded and pulled the sleeves of his shirt up.

“You’re doing great, Richard,” Dan said. “The needle is going to go through muscle. The more you relax, the less it’s going to hurt.” She smiled comfortingly at Richard. “Ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Hep A,” Connie announced as she stuck Richard in the right shoulder. Like before, Richard flinched at the slight pain in his arm from the stick. But he didn’t whine when it burned as Connie pushed the vaccine in. “And don’t forget to do the 6 month follow-up for this shot.” She gently placed a Band-Aid over the injection site.

“TDap booster,” Connie announced as she stuck him in the fatty tissue of the right arm. And again she gently placed a Band-Aid over the injection site.

“Yellow fever.” Stuck in the left shoulder. Band-Aid placed.

“Typhoid.” Stuck in the fatty tissue of the left arm. Band-Aid placed.

“Drop your pants for the Polio booster.”

Richard rose to his feet and raised an eyebrow at the two women. The two women looked blankly back at him because this was standard procedure. Richard undid his belt and pulled down the zip of his pants. “Of course you would want me to drop my pants,” Richard said lecherously.

“Not all the way!” Connie exclaimed with a laugh as Richard was just about to shove his pants down to his knees. “If Dan wants to see your junk, that’s between you two.” Connie winked at Dan. “But I just need the top of your bum.”

“If I want to grab ass and look at penises, I call up my N Bros. They’re a ready and eager supply.” Dan laughed and Richard made a displeased expression.

“Not funny?” Dan asked.

Richard shook his head.

“Well, you didn’t notice your last shot. So I guess it worked.” She shrugged.

\---

“Let’s get to it,” Jason said, his brows furrowed as he looked at Richard. Unlike the previous week, Richard had his combat training with Jason in the morning and stunt training with Sam in the afternoon. Jason stated that the change was due to him having a meeting to attend in the afternoon.

“I can’t,” Richard admitted pathetically. He was exhausted beyond anything he had experienced before. It pained him to admit that he was defeated, but he had no energy left in him. Both of his arms still throbbed with soreness from yesterday’s shots and Jason was being extra aggressive in training that morning. Richard knew that if the pace didn’t slow down, he would either be vomiting in the corner or passing out.

Richard knew that Jason was a fairly unsympathetic type of man, but he wasn’t ready for Jason’s harsh response. “TUFO. Toughen up or fuck off. I’m not here to coddle you, _boy_.” Jason spat out the last word angrily and it didn’t matter to Jason that Richard was only a handful of years older than him. “When you’re on the battlefield, the enemy isn’t going to give you a break even though every muscle in your body is screaming with pain. The lives of your fellows are in your hands and your ability to push through.”

Jason’s brows furrowed even more. “I’m here to push you to the limit, to make sure you and everyone else survives. Understood?”

Richard nodded. “I’m sorry.”

Jason took a deep breath and his expression softened. He realized that he had been excessively harsh with Richard as soon as the words came out. “Don’t be sorry. Work harder. Let’s get to it.” But Richard noticed that Jason dialed back the intensity a notch.

“You okay?” Richard finally asked as they toweled off their sweat and made a couple laps around the gym to slow their heart rates at the end of training.

“Yeah, why do you ask?”

“You seem a little on edge today.”

Jason shrugged. “Just your typical SNAFU.”

 _There it is again,_ Richard thought. _He and Dan say the exact same things._

“I have to work with my ex.”

“Ah,” Richard said knowingly; it was part of the reason why he chose not to date other actors. “Want to talk about it?”

“I understand that she needs her space, but it hurts to see her and not be with her. I was supposed to be her back-up, but I wasn’t ready for what the mission required. I know I’m partly responsible for her PTSD.”

Richard nodded sympathetically and waited for Jason to continue. _That explains his tirade earlier. He still has some lingering guilt about not being prepared enough._

“I still love her. The kind of love where you look into her eyes and it’s like the constellations are aligned. Have you ever been in love like that?” Jason rolled his eyes at himself, not waiting for Richard to respond. “Listen to me ramble. I have to get my shit together.”

Richard placed a hand on his trainer’s shoulder. “GLHV.”

Jason chuckled. “Thanks.”                                                                                                                

\---

_She beamed with pride as she received a standing ovation for her PhD defense in electrical engineering on bomb-defusing electromagnetic pulse grenades. She bowed respectfully at all the respected scientists, engineers, and military officers who had attended. She hastily wiped a tear that had formed in the corner of her eye because of how honored she was to be in current position._

_“Incredible work,” a man a few years older than her said as he shook her hand. “This sort of technology will save countless lives, both military and civilian.”_

_“Thank you so much, Sir,” she replied._

_“Jason McAllister.”_

_His hand lingered for a moment too long and he smiled brightly at the young woman. She blushed slightly and broke eye contact for a few seconds before looking shyly back up at him. It was a gameshow love connection. In that moment, they knew in their heart of hearts that they found the love of their lives._

_“I was wondering if I would be able to take you to dinner,” Jason continued. “It’s one part celebration and one part job offer. I think you would be an incredible addition to the military intelligence community.”_

_“Thank you, Mr. McAllister, but I have my sights set on a second PhD.”_

_“Who said you couldn’t do both? I’d hate to see such incredible talent wasted.” His green eyes held her brown ones._

_“If you put it like that… how can I refuse?”_

_“8PM tonight?”_

_“I like American.”_

_Jason raised an eyebrow. “You want to celebrate with hamburgers and fries? Not something elaborate and fancy?”_

_She shrugged. “You’re the first man to complain about a cheap date.”_

_“Whatever makes you happy. I’m the one trying to get you to jump in bed with the CIA.” Jason replied. He winked at her and turned away, allowing the next well-wisher in line speak with her. “See you tonight.”_

\---

“You have to be careful with Ghostrider,” Jason said to Myles as they waited for Avery to arrive at the CIA HQ gun range. “I don’t know if people adore her because she’s a genuinely likeable person. Or if it’s because she steamrolls you into liking her. Either way, she will break your heart.”

Myles nodded, but didn’t respond. He had been thoroughly briefed about the situation. He knew that Avery and Jason had been inseparable since the first day they met at her first PhD defense; Jason was the one to recruit Avery to the service and train her. Together they conceived and ran Operation Jester. And after almost a decade of dating, they had plans to officially get married and start a family. Then it all went to Hell in a handbasket with Operation Jester suffered a crippling betrayal and lost one of their best agents, Snowfall. Avery severely isolated herself and all her relationship fell apart, especially her relationship with Jason.

No one really knew why Avery had requested Jason as her back-up on the mission. But it was now Myles’ job to keep the two of them from killing each other before the mission could be completed.

Jason stood straight, shoulder back, and with his feet should-width apart. His hands were in his pockets. It was the stance of a confident man. But Myles could detect an underlying current of nervousness.

Avery nodded at Jason. “Vortex,” she said curtly in greeting.

“Ghostrider,” he replied in an equally clipped tone.

Avery turned towards Myles and extended a hand to him. “Pleasure to meet you, Falcon,” she said kindly with a smile as they shook hands.

“The pleasure is all mine, Ghostrider,” Myles responded. “Should we get started?” He could already feel the tension in the air and wanted to diffuse it as quickly and quietly as possible. He hoped that once Avery and Jason fell back into the pattern of being perfectly in sync, the tension would simply resolve itself.

The gun range had been specifically set up that day as an obstacle course. Avery and Jason would make their way through the course, taking out the targets that would sporadically pop out from behind obstacles as they proceeded through the course. The targets were also equipped with paintball guns themselves, so that they would fire at the agents. Even though Avery had asked for Jason as her tactical support, Myles was going to be the mission’s handler; he sat at a laptop off the course, coordinating Avery’s and Jason’s movements for maximum efficiency.

After a handful of practice rounds, the three began to function as a well-oiled machine. However, much to Myles’ dismay, the tension was still very much present between Avery and Jason. Myles glanced nervously between the two agents during a break. “Should we talk about this?”

Avery and Jason turned their bodies towards Myles, their glares severe enough to make Myles feel like he was being stabbed all over his torso. Myles squirmed under their glares and all his training went down the drain. He blurted out, “This is not an effective unit!”

Jason cocked his head slightly to the right. “We’re not an effective unit? Tell me how. Because we’ve completed every simulation perfectly.”

Myles swallowed a lump in his throat. “Maybe for you two! But I’m shaking, worried that your anger will explode and compromise the mission.”

“Has it been a problem?” Avery asked. Myles shook his head. “Then would it become a problem? Can’t trust your two senior agents to act professionally?”

“You don’t even realize that you’re taking your anger at each other out on me!” Myles cried. “Damn it! I want to have a long career with the CIA. I don’t want you two idiots to screw it up because you can’t talk it out.” As much as they didn’t want to admit it, Myles was right.

Jason tossed his rifle at Myles, who caught it out of the air. Jason settled into a fighting stance. Avery also tossed her rifle at Myles, who caught it out of the air again, and rolled her shoulders. She stretched her neck and launched into her attack. She executed a two-punch combination and a roundhouse kick to Jason’s right side. Jason blocked her kick and came in throw a left-hand punch at her abdomen.

Avery leaned away from the punch, circled around, and threw a right-hand punch at Jason’s side. However, Jason saw the punch coming and being larger, pulled Avery into his body for a choke hold. Avery bit him in the hand until he loosened his grip.

With Jason still bent over slightly from having the much smaller woman in a hold, Avery jumped and kicked Jason with both of her feet out in front of her, knocking Jason onto his back with Avery landing on top of him. She quickly scrambled to her feet while Jason was recovering. She pulled a rifle from Myles’s arms, who was shocked catatonic, and pointed it at the spot between Jason’s eyes.

“Why’d you pick me?” he asked, still lying on the ground. “For old times’ sake? Are we getting the old gang back together? Should I expect Bonesaw to jump out from behind of one the obstacles any second now?” He took a deep breath and slowly rose to his feet. “We haven’t spoken for two years, seven months, and three days.”

Avery’s eyes widened in surprise and her grip on the rifle loosened.

“Yes, I’ve been fucking counting! It’s been that fucking long since we broke up, Avery. And it still fucking hurts.”

“You hurt?” Avery shouted back. She re-aimed the rifle at Jason. “You fucking sold me out to the fucking Palestinians!”

“You know I had to.” Jason shook his head, trying to rid himself of the immense guilt that had plagued him for the four months Avery had been tortured. “And I came back for you.”

“You have no idea what it cost me! They broke me, Jason. They fucking broke me. And when I came home I was so angry and confused and scared.”

“I wanted to help you. I begged you to let me help you.”

Avery shook her head. “You couldn’t help me except by staying away. Every time I looked at you, all I could think about was the fucking interrogators.”

All of Jason’s anger suddenly evaporated. “But why did you pick me now?” He reached out and grasped the barrel of the rifle. He pushed it away so that it was no longer pointing at him. Avery lowered her arms and dropped the rifle to the ground. “I get a phone call from Alleycat demanding I get my ass out to DC because _you_ asked for me. Imagine my fucking surprise. What changed, Ghostrider?”

“Nothing. Because even after all this time, I still trust you. This is my first time back in the field and I want to have someone I trust.” Avery’s hands were shaking violently.

Jason closed the space between them and wrapped his arms around her. Avery’s arms still hung at her side, but she leaned into Jason’s embrace and rested her forehead against his shoulder. Myles simply watched, knowing that if he said something he could ruin the healing process Jason and Avery were going through.

“Unit GV19 is solid,” Jason said softly. _I’m always looking out for you._ Avery and Jason used to say that to each other at the start of every mission; it was their way of declaring their undying love and trust for one other. Jason placed a hand on the side of Avery’s head and kissed her on the top of head. “Unit GV19 is solid,” he repeated.

Avery couldn’t respond because she was crying.


	11. Up In the Air

Richard paused as he stepped out of the shower, not entirely sure if he had imagined someone knocking on the door or not. He waited 10 seconds and there were five more hard raps on the door. Richard quickly finished drying himself off and wrapped his towel around his waist. He glanced at the clock on the wall; it was 21:30.

 _Who could that be?_ he thought. Richard peeked through the peephole and was surprised to see Dan standing out there. Her fingers were tapping away at her thighs and her face was tilted towards the ceiling, as if she was listening to the voice of God. Richard hastily pulled open the door. Dan’s eyes quickly flicked up and down to take in the sight of him half-naked and a little damp, but her gaze settled on Richard’s face.

Richard looked Dan up and down, as well. She had exchanged her stern, traditional military wear, a shallow V-neck t-shirt with tactical pants and combat boots, for a loose fitting tank top and distressed jeans and black, square frame sunglasses. Her tank top was black with the words “Inhale. Exhale. Fire.” in neon red. She was also wearing a pair of old, dirty, black Chuck Taylors. Richard’s lips turned up in a small smile. _That description fits her perfectly_ , he thought. _It’s so weird seeing her wear “casual” clothing. I wonder if this how nurses feel when they see their fellow nurses not wearing scrubs._

“What are you doing here?” he asked lamely, trying to keep his thoughts in check. Richard tried not to stare at the more than usual exposure of her skin and blurt out, “You’re fucking beautiful.” He cleared his throat and asked awkwardly, “Is everything alright?”

Dan gave Richard an amused grin, noting his reaction to her outfit. “I texted you I was stopping by, but I think you were in the shower when I did. I would’ve let myself in, but that would have been a little too surprising on your end.”

“It would have been surprising, but not unwelcome.”

Dan chuckled. “Anyway, SUV is parked outside for you. I was serious when I said you should go home for a few days.” Her eyes moved to his chest for a fraction of a second, where a few stray droplets of water from his hair dropped onto his shoulders and were now running down his the bare skin of his chest.

“Do you want to come in?” Richard asked.

She shook her head and turned to walk away. “Got a flight to catch. TCOY, Hollywood. Take care of yourself.”

“Thanks. GLHV on your trip. How long is the flight?”

“Sixteen hours.”

“Text me when you land?” Richard asked, sticking his head out the door to watch Dan’s retreat. _Damn, those jeans work miracles on her legs._

Dan heard Richard, but she didn’t respond. She was too busy to listening to Jason chiding her in her ear; Dan’s sunglasses had been outfitted with recording equipment, so Jason had live visual and audio from Dan’s position. “You’re horrible,” Jason said to end his commentary.

“I’m allowed to have some fun,” Dan huffed as she stepped into the elevator. “It’s been a while.”

“You shouldn’t encourage him.”

“We’re spooks. According to Double-Oh-Seven, sex is what we do best.” Dan said as she exited the hotel and climbed into a dark blue Lexus coupe. Myles was sitting behind the wheel, laughing.

“You’re in on this, too?” Dan asked.

Myles tapped his earpiece, with which he had been listening to the entire conversation. “You may be right, but he’s going to get hurt in the end.”

Dan shrugged. “Hollywood can handle it; he'll just write it off as character study.”

“That’s a little harsh,” Myles said.

“Life is harsh.”

\---

Avery rubbed her eyes and groaned with exhaustion. She never needed much sleep, but since she had been placed back on Operation Jester what little sleep she did get was uneasy and filled with memories she didn’t want to revisit. Her exhaustion was finally catching up to her. She looked at her watch; they were only three hours into the flight.

“Take a nap,” Myles said when he heard Avery’s groan. He was seated at a computer terminal in the cabin of the plane. He was able to monitor the plane’s autopilot from there, as well as, do some other CIA work. “You have last shift; you can squeeze a decent number of hours.”

“No, I’m fine,” Avery replied. She rolled her shoulders and tried to make herself comfortable in her chair.

“Keep me company then,” Jason said. He headed towards the back of the plane, where there was a full size bed for agents to rest during long operations. The small suite also included a washroom, a closest, and a weapons cache. “The Shadow Factory will still be open after a break,” Jason added quickly when Avery opened her mouth to insist she was fine.

Avery sighed and followed Jason to the back room. Jason laid on his back on the right side of the bed, his hands clasped on his stomach. Avery laid down on the left side of the bed, but curled on her side facing away from Jason.

“How are you?” Jason asked after a few minutes of staring at the ceiling.

“I’m alright.”

“Been better though, hm?”

“Haven’t we all?”

Jason knew Avery well enough that he understood. He knew that she was still coming to terms with returning to active service and being reinstated to Operation Jester. Rather than pressing the issue, Jason talked about what he had been doing over the past two years they’d been apart. He told her stories about his missions and about the bureaucratic changes. Jason tried to keep the subject matter as light as possible, as if secret service operations could ever be light.

For the 90 minutes that Jason spoke, Avery silently listened to Jason’s gentle tenor. He didn’t have a distinctive voice like Richard, but it was still a pleasant and familiar voice to listen to.

“Do you love him?” Jason finally asked.

“Who?” Avery asked, purposefully being obtuse.

“Armitage.”

“Like I said before, he’s a good man.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Avery paused for a long while. “If the circumstances were different, I could see myself loving him.”

Jason barked laugh. “That’s the trick, isn’t it? If the circumstances were different.” He rolled onto his side and wrapped himself around Avery’s curled form. He draped his arm over her stomach and Avery clutched his strong hand in her own. Even though they knew it would take a long time for them to recover to what they once were, they needed the physical comfort right then and there. They needed the knowledge that there was someone out there who would always understand how difficult life was in the CIA.

“The circumstances are always against us,” Jason said as he gave Avery’s hand a squeeze

Avery chuckled. “We did that to ourselves when we joined the service.”

“Well, whatever your business with Armitage is, TCOY. It’s you I worry about.”

“I will.”

“If you say so.” Jason knew that Avery wasn’t going to listen to whatever he had to say about the matter. So he continued to talk about everything and nothing until Avery finally fell asleep.

\---

As per usual, Richard arrived at DARPA at 08:00. He decided to make a pit stop there before heading home to NYC like Dan had suggested. Richard wanted to impress Dan by finishing his calculus problem packet over the four days she would be gone, but he had forgotten to take the packet home with him last night.

 _I wonder if this is what it feels like when she shows up alone in the mornings_. Richard was greeted by pitch blackness and silence; because Dan knew she would be out-of-town she had turned off all of her computers. He wiped his badge over the light sensors to turn on the main warehouse lights. He made his way over to his desk and couldn’t help but chuckle at the slight disappointment he felt that there was no travel mug of tea waiting for him there.

 _I’m so spoiled._ He scooped up his empty mug from the previous night and headed towards Dan’s office. _I don’t think she’d mind if I helped myself_. Richard swiped his badge and the electronic lock disengaged. Dan hadn’t lied when she said she gave him access to all of her things; he was pleased that Dan had trusted him enough to let him into her private space.

Richard subconsciously tapped his fingers on the desk as he waited for the water in the electric kettle to boil. He started opening the cabinets over and under the counter where the kettle was located, scanning the contents.

_An audiobook of le Carre’s The Night Manager? I didn’t peg Dan as the type of person to listen to audiobooks. This would be great to listen to on the drive to NYC! I don’t think she’d mind if I borrowed it; she wouldn’t even know unless I said something because I’d return it before she even got back from her trip._

Richard tucked the CD case under his arm and continued scanning the contents of the cabinets. Finding nothing else of interest, he moved over to Dan’s desk and started opening the drawers. Given Dan’s tenacity for being organized, Richard had a feeling that the inside her drawers were messy on purpose, to trick anyone who was digging around her personal space into being careless.

 _I guess she isn’t that trusting_ , Richard thought. _And look at me, acting like a fucking spy. I’ve started having the dreams early and I’m behaving like my character in real life._

Then Richard saw it, an envelope flush against the inside wall of the bottom right-hand drawer. He didn’t know why it caught his attention since it had no markers or wasn’t an unusual shape, but he burned to know what was in it. Carefully, Richard extracted the enveloped and pulled out its contents. There were eight photographs. Three of them were Dan and the Winsletts. Richard noticed that Dan looked so much happier and healthier in the photos than she did currently.

The fourth photo was from Dan’s graduation. She was standing in the center and holding some kind of device, flanked by a number of men wearing crisp suits or military uniforms. The fifth photo was of Dan standing on the dock in front of a futuristic-looking battleship, one arm wrapped around Clive. The sixth photo was of Dan on the same battleship, leaning over the railing with the wind blowing through her hair.

_She looks absolutely beautiful. The smile she has is as if she’s looking at someone she loves._

Richard’s eyes popped out of their sockets when he saw the next photo. Dan was wearing the full, all-black US Navy SEAL tactical and her super-powered rifle was resting on her shoulder. She was standing sideways, but she looked directly into the camera. The man standing next to her, his body facing the camera and wearing the exact same outfit as Dan, was none other than Jason McAllister. Jason was holding a black placard with the words “UNIT GV19” in white letters.

 _It seems that Dan has many more military secrets than she’s letting on_ , Richard thought as he stared at the photo and committed it to memory. _I’m fairly certain that she’s an officer. And I’m fairly certain that most officers don’t do their own dirty work. Maybe she was enlisted before being promoted to officer? But the timeline doesn’t quite work out because she would have been in school during her enlistment…?_

_And Jason McAllister! You know what, I can’t say I’m surprised that Jason is Vortex. I’ve had my hunches, but just assumed it was because they were from the same military background. But in fairness, they never denied knowing each other. They just avoided answering the questions whenever I asked. Clever bastards._

Then Richard’s heart suddenly sank a little into his stomach. _That means that whatever deployment mission Dan is on right now, Jason is with her. Fuck! There’s no way I stand a chance against Jason. She and he were a match made in heaven according to everyone. But Jason made is sound like he was in love with her and she wasn’t in love with him. So… I still have a chance?_

 _Hah! We live such different lives. It would never work out even if we wanted it to._ But even as Richard talked himself through his disappointment and surprise, he still held on to a glimmer of hope.

As if Richard wasn’t already upset enough, the final photo made him forget how to breathe. It was a photo of Dan lying in a hospital bed with all sorts of tubes and wires attached to her body. He knew that if he hadn’t been staring at her for the past two weeks, he wouldn’t have recognized her. All of Dan’s hair had been shaved off, and she was covered in bruises and bandages. Jason was sitting in a chair at the edge of the bed, looking at Dan and holding her hand. Richard had a feeling that the photo must have been taken after Palestine.

Richard heard the electric kettle turn itself off. He replaced the photographs in the envelope and the envelope back into the desk. He poured his tea and glanced at his watch. It was 08:15; his questions couldn’t be answered by Dan or Jason for at least another nine hours.

\---

Richard opened his front door and sighed. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust and the air was stale from sitting still too long. Richard dropped his bag on the floor, shut the door behind himself, and walked into the kitchen.

He imagined finding Dan puttering around the kitchen, wearing an apron and brandishing a wooden spoon like a magic wand. He laughed at the thought; it was more likely that Dan would be sitting at the dining table, hunched over her work and surrounded by piles and piles of textbooks and pages of solved equations. Richard imaged Dan looked up at him and smiling. He imaged walked over to her and planting a loving kiss on her lips. He imagined that they would have a simple dinner, have sex, and then have a discussion about everything and nothing as they slipped off into blissful sleep.

Richard blinked and realized his fantasy was another man’s. _That would have been Dan and Jason’s life, if whatever happened in Palestine didn’t happen_. Richard took a deep breath and filled a glass with tap water. As he drank, he acknowledged he was lonely. Already in his late forties, he knew that his window of opportunity to have a wife and children was closing with each passing year.

Richard glanced at his watch; still another four hours before Dan’s flight would land. Richard settled himself at the dining table and opened his diary to the pages where he had written his dossier on Dan. Richard did a Google search of Dan; he typed “Avery Nguyen DARPA” into the keyword search. Richard couldn’t say he was exactly surprised when there were only a handful of pages of hits, and that most of the hits were not related to Dan in any capacity.

He clicked on the first relevant link. It brought him to the DARPA EMW R&D homepage, where it described in very vague terms what Dan and Clive had been working on for the past seven years. It also contained links to published academic articles and press about their work. Richard cross-referenced these links with the other hits provided by Google.

The only thing Richard found that he was able to understand was a small news blurb about Dan joining DAPRA.

**EM expert joins DAPRA to develop futuristic naval weapons. Dr. Avery Nguyen PhD, PhD will be partnering with Dr. Clive Winslett PhD on his ground-breaking “null zone” military technology and will be on joint commission with the US Navy. Dr. Avery Nguyen graduated with her second PhD in mechanical engineering from Stanford University; her dissertation was about detection of “null zone” aircraft.**

Richard tried looking Dan through her affiliation with Stanford University. However, the query didn’t result in much except for the title and abstract of her dissertation. Richard then decided to look up what “null zone” meant. Richard was able to understand a little of what was said about “null zone” technology; essentially they were devices that emitted continuous, localized EM pulses that would scramble any electronic and detection mechanism. This resulted in a virtual invisibility or a “null zone.”

_Apparently Clive is a pioneer in the field. Where Clive was the one who developed EMP weaponry, Dan was his counterpart developing the mechanisms to stop the EMP weaponry. Where does Jason fit into all of this? He’s no scientist or engineer._

He opened a new browser and did a Google search on Jason McAllister. Unlike Dan, Jason was all over the news for his extraordinary work as both a high-ranking naval officer and as the DARPA/Navy liaison. _Ah. Jason’s the bureaucrat that enables Dan and Clive to do the work that they do_.

**The Man They Call Poseidon: Jason McAllister ushers in a new age of naval warfare and dominance with EMP technology.**

**Jason McAllister praised as a visionary with his new plans for defending the US against foreign threats.**

**Jason McAllister’s new technology deters pirates, bringing stability to the African coast.**

**Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick. Jason McAllister installs the first operational railgun, providing the US with the biggest stick in the world.**

Richard was so absorbed in reading about all of Jason’s exploits, and by extension Dan’s and Clive’s accomplishments, that he didn’t realize four hours had passed. His phone pinged from its location just an arm’s reach away on the table, indicating he had a text message. Richard couldn’t help the small smile; the text was from Dan.

_Only because you asked._

_Because I asked what?_ Richard stared at the text message, trying to think of the context for the statement. _Oh, that’s right_ , he thought ruefully. _I’d asked her to text me when she landed. I didn’t think she heard me._ Rereading the message, Richard wasn’t sure if Dan was trying to be funny or if she was annoyed with his over investment in her well-being.

Richard scolded himself for being so upset with Dan because of his newfound knowledge about Dan’s and Jason’s relationship. He was jealous of the type of strong relationship they used to have and he knew it; the jealousy was made worse because he also really wanted Dan.

_Thank you! Stay safe._

_Remember: you promised no gunshot wounds when you come home._

_Take that bubble bath with wine._

_I will. Send my love to Jason, too._

_He says LYT. But remember: ILY more._

Just as Avery sent her response, she realized that Richard knew Jason was on the mission with her. She frowned at her phone for a few moments, trying to figure out when she had mentioned it. “Shit,” Avery cursed under her breath; there was a possibility that Richard was joking around and she had accidentally confirmed the information. _Or there is the possibility Richard somehow knew from someone else_ , Avery thought.

“Vortex?” Avery asked as she disembarked the plane with the last of their equipment from the cabin.

“What’s up, Ghostrider?”

“Did you tell Hollywood that you were coming with me?”

Jason furrowed his brows. “I mentioned that I was working with my ex, but didn’t say anything specific.”

“Then how does he know you’re with me?”


	12. Malaysia, Part 1

Joshua McCourt poured himself two fingers of whiskey and settled into one of the many plush armchairs in the drawing room of the west wing of his mansion. He watched the sunset through a large window for a few minutes while nursing his drink. Then he made a beckoning motion with two fingers using his left hand.

A burly man with a stern face, dark brown hair, and narrow brown eyes emerged from the shadows and handed over the first file. “We found your ghost,” the man said.

“Excellent, Zeus,” Joshua replied as he examined the two photos of Avery that were in the folder. The first photo was of Avery five years ago when she was undercover in Palestine as Katerina Nazareno. She had long and curly strawberry blonde hair and green eyes. The second photo was Avery as regular herself at DARPA. Joshua skimmed over the written documents, knowing that they were summaries of his previous encounter with Unit GV19 and their affiliates.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Joshua said distractedly, his eyes riveted on the photo of Avery as her regular self. “I never cared much for blondes, anyway.”

Zeus cleared his throat. “Currently existing as Avery Nguyen,” Zeus said. “Besides the close physical match, Avery’s PhD dissertation was on EMP and has been working for DARPA over the past seven years. There is no information about her prior to her PhD dissertation. Currently, she’s building railguns with a Dr. Clive Winslett. Dr. Winslett also worked on EMP until the CIA shut everything EMP-related in a tightly sealed vault. We still don’t know the whereabouts of Dr. Benjamin Hunters, but all we have to do is squeeze Ghostrider tight enough.”

“How do you plan on squeezing her?”

“Those details to be determined. We thought about asking Dr. Winslett. But knowing how the CIA operates, he probably has no idea that he’s being played by them. Anyway, we have reason to believe that Ghostrider will be present at the Malaysian Arms Trade later this week.”

Joshua nodded at Zeus and turned his attention back to the last few documents in the folder. There was a photo of Jason McAllister, a photo of Sarah Chesteen, and a photo of Myles Terrence. There was also a significant packet on recent CIA activities related to stomping out illegal arms deals.

When Joshua was finished perusing the documents, Zeus handed over the second folder. It contained details about the upcoming Malaysian military conference. The official purpose of the annual conference was to be a venue for foreign dignitaries to discuss the state of Southeast Asian and Pacific Island militaries, however, it also facilitated an annual conference for illegal arms dealers. The file Zeus had given Joshua contained most of the same information Kevin McAllister briefed his agents with.

“By all means, intercept them,” Joshua said.

Zeus nodded and handed over the third folder. “You didn’t request this, Sir, but I think you would enjoy reviewing it. Michael Harrison, codenamed Bonecrusher, MI-6. He’s the arrogant and ambitious younger brother of Eric Harrison. Bonecrusher tapped GCHQ for us and is the reason we found your ghost. As per protocol, we will take him out once his utility has expired.”

“Thank you, Zeus,” Joshua said with a nod at his right-hand man. “Brief Queenie and report back to me after Malaysia.”

“Of course, Sir.” Zeus turned smartly on his heel and exited the office.

As soon as Zeus stepped out of the room, Joshua threw the files onto the coffee table and leaned his back in his armchair; he split his attention between the setting sun and at the ceiling. He took a long sip of his whiskey, enjoying the burn as the liquid made its way down his throat. “You got away once, Ghostrider. You paid a heavy price, but you did it.” He chuckled. “Not this time.”

\---

“Hollywood is cleverer than you give him credit for. He probably asked Winters and connected the dots,” Jason said. He dropped a plank onto the two stacks of crates, creating a make-shift conference table in the hangar. They had landed at 04:30 Saturday morning and didn’t have much to do until 08:00. Jason and Myles made themselves busy by moving equipment from their jet to their jeep and by making the hangar look like an ad hoc military base. Avery was sitting in a fold-out camping chair, her legs dangling over one of the arms and her fingers tapping absently on her thigh.

Avery sighed and swung around in the chair to place her feet on the floor. “I’ll chat him up when I get home.” Jason barked a single laugh as he placed three identical briefing folders on the table, knowing that Avery used the phrase “chat him up” as a euphuism for “interrogation.”

“Alright, gentlemen,” Avery said as they were all comfortable situated around the table. “I’ll be playing American foreign ambassador to Southeast Asian, Mrs. Evelyn Matteson. Falcon is my new personal assistant, Perry Volenheim. Falcon, while at the conference, do your best to act like an attention-deprived assistant who is willing to do anything to get the slightest bit of approval from me.”

“Not that it’s too far from reality,” Jason joked.

Myles shrugged. “Can’t help that I want Ghostrider to love me.”

“As one who held Ghostrider’s love for almost a decade, trust me when I tell you that you don’t want it.”

Avery laughed and held up her right hand. “I second that.” She cleared her throat and continued the re-briefing. “Falcon and I are using the V-22 Osprey as leverage. The main selling point is that it has mounted missiles and lasers that can be fired from the back transport. Vortex, you’re on as tactical support and will step in as my husband when necessary. The conference officially starts at 11:00, but I don’t think we’ll get much opportunity to network with Jester until cocktail hour and dinner at 18:00. The mission is to gather and assess intel that Jester is once again on the hunt for EMP technology or for Dr. Benjamin Hunters. Alleycat said not to engage MI-6, but Alleycat can fuck himself on that parameter.”

“Are you sure about that?” Myles asked.

“About what? Ignoring Alleycat’s order about engaging The Circus?” Avery replied. Myles nodded, a slight frown on his lips. “Bonesaw is my best friend, not just my best professional contact. How FUBAR would it be if I didn’t engage?”

“Do we know if Jester will be at the meeting?” Myles asked, dropping his complaint about Avery’s blatant disregard for Alleycat’s order. He knew it was an argument he wasn’t going to win.

Jason shook his head. “Doubt it. I think it’ll be his right-hand man and his left-hand woman: Zeus and Queenie.”

“Any other questions?” Avery asked. Jason and Myles shook their heads. “Alright. It takes an hour to drive from here to the hotel…” She glanced at her watch. “So we’ve got an hour to loiter around.”

\---

Avery strode into the hotel lobby with all the airs and confidence of a woman who knew that she could get away with anything she wanted. Avery wore a white button-down shirt tucked into slim fitting black pants and red almond-toe pumps. She was wearing a red belt to match her shoes and her black, square framed sunglasses.

Myles followed Avery, one step behind and slightly off to Avery’s left. He was dressed in a similar fashion, in a crisp black suit with a white button-down shirt. He had a red tie that matched Avery’s shoes and the same pair of sunglasses. He had his cell phone clipped on his right hip; his handgun holstered on his left hip. He carried their two duffel bags. Jason followed Myles, wearing the exact same outfit and dragging two large roller board suitcases.

“Mrs. Evelyn Matteson,” Avery said to the young man behind the check-in counter. She drummed her fingers on the counter in fake impatience and scanned the hotel lobby. She accepted the keys from the desk attendant and headed off towards the elevators without letting the young man finish his canned welcome speech. Myles and Jason followed after her without ever looking in his general direction.

The young man shuddered. Even though he had been on the job for almost a year, there was something about people in positions of power with unlimited wealth that made him a little nervous. _You know when someone’s up to something when they wear sunglasses indoors_ , he thought.

\---

The afternoon passed relatively slowly; Avery and Myles had to sit through multiple lectures, pretending to be interested in the topics being discussed. Jason lounged in their hotel suite, monitoring the conference and the two agents on multiple computer screens. Even though Avery had folded her sunglasses and had them hooked into the buttons of her shirt, Myles continued to wear his sunglasses. It wasn’t particularly odd, as most of the other bodyguards did as well.

“Zeus is at the bar. Engage when ready,” Jason said over the comm.

Avery tossed her hair over her shoulder and politely excused herself from the idle conversation she was having with another foreign ambassador. She slipped into the empty space at the bar and leaned on the countertop, arching her back slightly and giving everyone a great view of her ass.

The man Jason referred to as Zeus looked her up and down. Avery responded by looking up through her lashes back at him and by giving him a sly and slightly playful smile.

“It’s rude to stare and not buy me a drink,” Avery said. She flipped onto her back, propping herself on the bar with her elbows. With the way her shoulders were pulled back, the front of her shirt was a little more open than usual.

The man cleared his throat and adjusted his tie. “Please, excuse me for being rude, Ms…?”

“Mrs. Evelyn Matteson,” Avery said, emphasizing her personal title. She righted herself and offered her hand to him.

“Quinten Thomas,” he said as they firmly shook hands. As soon as they released their hands, he waved to the tired-looking man behind the bar and shouted, “Bartender! Two single malts, stat.” Quinten handed Avery a glass. “To making new friends in familiar places.” They clinked their glasses and threw the whiskey back. “What business does a woman like you have here, Mrs. Matteson? If I may be so bold to ask.”

Avery faked a tinkling laugh. “My husband is a rather dull and unimaginative man. Someone has to take care of the empire.”

“Who’s the man who keeps glancing in our direction?”

“Personal assistant,” Avery replied. “He’s new. I got frustrated with my previous one and threw him out the back of a V-22 Osprey. Was really tempted to blast him to bits with the back-mounted laser, but that would take the fun out of him splattering on the ground.”

“Oh! Hot tempered.”

Avery shrugged. “You would be too at that level of incompetence.” She made a motion at the bartender and two more glasses appeared at her elbow. She lifted one glass in a lazy salute to Quinten and threw back the whiskey.

“Are you selling the V-22?” Quinten asked, sipping at his own glass.

“Maybe, maybe not. I have to find the right buyer.”

“I might be your man.”

“Please!” Avery purred to Quentin. “The V-22 is housed at my private airfield. I would love to give you a personal tour tomorrow morning. It’d save me the trouble from having to fly it home.”

“Would it be offensive if I invited myself, Mrs. Matteson?”

Avery and Quentin turned to the man who had walked into their conversation. He was in his early forties, with a gentlemanly face. He had blue eyes and was bald, with a bit of black stubble growing out. He had a long, narrow nose, sharp jawline, and tight lips.

Avery looked the man up and down, making a show of deciding if she wanted the newcomer to join the party. It took all of her willpower not to jump into his arms and give him a big hug. It had been a few long years since she had last seen Eric Harrison. And now that Avery had seen him again, she realized just how much she missed the MI-6 agent.

“It depends,” she replied, placing her index finger on his chest and smiling coyly. “What do you have to offer me?”

One corner of his mouth turned up. Eric had slightly crooked teeth from one too many punches in the face. He shrugged with an air nonchalance. “A lot more than this arsehole.” Eric cocked his thumb at Quentin and Quentin pouted slightly with disapproval. “There is nothing I can’t offer you, love.”

Avery raised an eyebrow. She opened her mouth to make a response, but Myles interrupted.  “Please excuse me, Mrs. Matteson. There is a VIP on the line.” He made a show of giving Avery an adoring smile, as if he was pleased to be working with a woman who had connections with people in powerful positions. Myles offered Avery his cell phone.

Avery nodded. “Of course.” She looked over her shoulder to address Quinten and Eric. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll have Mr. Volenheim personally bring a note to your hotel room with the address of my private hangar.” She gave the two men another bright smile and followed Myles away.


	13. Malaysia, Part 2

Without waiting for the jeep to come to a full stop, Avery hoisted herself out through the window and ran full speed towards Eric. “Bonesaw!” she shouted excitedly as the older British man scooped her into his arms and spun her in a circle.

“How are you, love?” he asked as he put her back on the ground. He kissed Avery on the forehead and threw his left arm around her shoulders in a sideways hug; Avery’s right arm snaked its way comfortably around Eric’s waist. “It’s been far too long, Ghostrider. The Circus said you’d be at the conference, but I was still surprised to see you.”

“I’m doing even better, knowing you’re with me.” Avery grinned up at him. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too. You and your quirks and your stupid jokes. You’re my favorite American, after all.”

“And you’re my favorite Brit.”

“More than your tourist?”

Avery rolled her eyes. “Yes! Why would you even think for a nanosecond that I prefer Armitage over you?” She gave Eric a squeeze. “And how do you know about him, the lovely bastard?”

Eric chuckled. “He’s now a British national treasure! We keep track of them when they’re on loan.”

Avery barked a laugh. “Some national treasure he is if you loan him to me!”

“We are going to get him back, right?” He winked at Avery, suggesting that Avery and Richard would be so enamored with each other by the end of the eight-week internship that Richard wouldn’t want to remain a British citizen.

“I can’t guarantee that he’ll be returned intact. You can see bits of his brain leaking out during his calculus and physics lessons. And Vortex likes beating him to a pulp once a week during combat training.”

“Jealousy?”

“Not at all,” Jason said. “Armitage may have the goods, but I have the skills.” If he was any degree upset about the conservation, he didn’t show it. Jason came over and clasped Eric’s right forearm in a Roman handshake.  “Oversight?” he asked. _Who’s on as your tactical support?_

“Bonecrusher.” _The little brother, Michael._

“He passed his field exam?”

“Seven months ago. This is his first field assignment.”

“Good for him! Please welcome him to the hurt locker club on my behalf.”

“Is he joining the party?” Avery asked. She looked around the airfield for a younger-looking and slightly less sinister-looking version of Eric.

Eric shook his head. “He’s casually monitoring my frequency, but he wanted to follow a lead this morning. We both figured I’d be safe enough with you lot.” He shrugged. “By the way, when did you get a son? I feel terrible for the poor sod, having you two as parents.” _When did you become a trainer? And the fact he’s being trained by both of you and Vortex? That’s not an easy assignment._

“This month. This is also his first field assignment.”

Myles came jogging up to the threesome; he had a sniper rifle slung across his chest and was carrying some surveillance equipment. “Sorry to break up the reunion, but Jester is five miles out.” He looked Eric up and down, combining the physical Eric with his internal construction of the man based on Avery’s old reports. “Myles Terrence, Falcon.”

“Eric Harrison, Bonesaw.”

Myles and Eric clasped forearms and gave each other a nod. Myles then trotted off towards the tress to set up his post. Jason took off towards the hangar. Avery and Eric put an appropriate amount of distance between them and discussed business. A few minutes later, Quentin and four other men Avery didn’t recognize from the party last night appeared.

\---

“Mr. Volenheim wasn’t able to join us this morning,” Ghostrider said as she led the men to the hangar where the tilt-rotor aircraft was parked. “I have him chasing some leads for helicopters.”

“Seth?” Ghostrider called when they stepped into the hangar. Vortex came jogging from a small plane parked in the hangar, where he had been fixing the engine. He was covered to his elbows in grease. Not caring, Ghostrider reached out her hand to Vortex and he accepted it. “This is my husband, Seth Matteson,” Ghostrider said. She leaned up on her tiptoes to give Vortex a quick peck on the cheek. “I think one of these men are going to purchase the V-22 Osprey,” she said to him.

“Excellent!” Vortex said. “I would shake your hands, but I wouldn’t want to get grease all over you. My wife never seems to mind, though.”

“That’s because I have worse things on my hands than grease,” Ghostrider playfully replied. All the men in the room knew that she was making a reference to having blood on her hands; it was to be expected in their line of business.

Vortex steered the small gathering towards the aircraft. He proudly raised his free am in a grand gesture to introduce the V-22 Osprey. “Within the past year, the US Marines have developed the capability to fire missiles and rockets mounted on the front. However, within the past month, they have figured out how to fire missiles and lasers from the rear unloading ramp. It would suffice to say that the V-22 Osprey is now as fucking deadly as it is awesome.” Vortex smiled encouragingly at the men. “Please feel free to check it out. It’s a shame my wife wants to sell it, but I know she’s got bigger plans I’ll never quite understand.”

“That is true,” Ghostrider replied. She pulled Vortex to her and wrapped her arms around his neck; she gave him a big kiss. “And you’re the perfect husband for always being so understanding,” she said after she gave him a second kiss.

Zeus and Bonesaw politely looked away from the display of affection. They silently made themselves busy by examining the pristine state of the aircraft. Zeus spent some time running his hands over the missiles installed on the rear unloading ramp.

The silence was broken when Vortex said, “Please excuse me. I need to take this call.” He turned his back on the group and answered his phone. He walked away as he spoke into his phone.

The hair on the back of Ghostrider’s neck stood up and something prickled the base of her spine. She shivered. Bonesaw raised an eyebrow at her, catching her shiver as he exited the plane.

“Cool breeze,” she lied. Ghostrider turned her attention on Zeus, who now joined them. “What do you think?”

Zeus, Ghostrider, and Bonesaw exchanged offers, subtly sliding in references to their wealth and power. They all knew they were hunting each other; it was a matter of assessing who would be picked off first. Ghostrider also made up obscure references to finding a black market for EMP, expertly memorizing and evaluating Zeus’ responses.

“That’s my final offer, Ghostrider,” Zeus said.

The conversation came to an abrupt halt when one of Zeus’ men dropped to the ground, a bullet in his brain. Zeus sprang into action. He grabbed Ghostrider, one arm wrapped around her neck in a chokehold and the other hand pressing a handgun into the soft spot under her ribs. Zeus positioned himself with his back up against the plane. “I will kill her.”

Zeus’ second man bolted from the hangar, towards the trees where the bullet had come from. Falcon aimed, exhaled, and fired for the second time that morning. And like before, the bullet changed its trajectory midflight, compensating for the crosswind and the motion of the target. Zeus’ second man dropped as the bullet flew straight through his neck.

Falcon pulled the trigger for a third time. Even though Zeus had Ghostrider pinned in front of him, like with the previous two, the bullet curved partway through its flight, grazed Ghostrider’s neck, and found purchase in the man’s shoulder. Zeus grunted in pain and dropped the gun, his arm completely useless.

His hold slackened by the shock of the gunshot wound, Ghostrider threw her elbow back into his stomach and dislocated the arm that was wrapped around her neck. She punched Zeus across the left cheek and scooped up his dropped handgun when he stumbled two steps back. His handgun was a standard issue British military Browning and not a particular favorite of Ghostrider’s.

Ghostrider shot Zeus in the knee and he landed flat on his back. Ghostrider stepped on his wounded shoulder; he groaned in pan. “We know you’re working for Joshua McCourt. What is he after this time?” Ghostrider demanded.

Vortex appeared from the shadows and shot Zeus’ third man, three bullets finding a home in the man’s chest. The fourth man grappled with Vortex. Vortex’s leg flew up and he landed a kick on the man’s throat, breaking his trachea. Ducking a wild punch from the critically wounded man, Vortex side-stepped around him and wrapped his arms around the man’s neck in a chokehold; it didn’t take long until Vortex suffocated him.

Bonesaw, staying true to his cover as a low-level government employee who was new to the game of illegal arms dealing, hid behind a pile of crates. He knew that this was not his fight.

Zeus simply smiled up at Ghostrider. It was the first time in three years since Ghostrider experienced such an adrenaline high and her anger was out of control. She shot Zeus in the other knee. “What is Joshua McCourt after this time?” Zeus shook his head. “ANSWER ME!” Ghostrider shouted.

“You won’t beat him. Not this time,” Zeus spat out.

Vortex approached and shot Zeus between the eyes.

Ghostrider took a step back. “What the fuck?” she shouted at Vortex. “We weren’t supposed to kill them. They were assets! They could have led us back to Jester.”

Vortex frowned back at her. “We got everything we need to know.”

“No, we didn’t!”

“He called you Ghostrider; no one outside this team knows you are Ghostrider. And secondly, he isn’t the real Zeus. He’s useless to both us and Jester.”

The realization slapped Ghostrider across the face and she struggled to breath. Jester had known her as Katerina Nazareno and with a different face. The fact that his right-hand man had called her Ghostrider meant that Jester had found her; he had cracked through all the layers of protection the CIA had given to her after Palestine. _Alleycat must have known_ , she thought. _That’s why he put me back in the field. So I could take an active stance on my security._

“How do you know he’s not the real Zeus?” she choked out.

“You never forget the face of your personal demon.” _I sold you out to Zeus to save Dr. Benjamin Hunters._

Ghostrider nodded, understanding. No matter what disguise Jester took, she would always recognize him when she saw him and would always have a sense of his activities. She had him burned on her soul because of what he had done to her.

Falcon abandoned his post and joined his team in the hangar. He looked back and forth between the two senior agents. They were doing “the thing” again, where they communicated with each other in a way that no one understood except them. It was born out of knowing everything about someone, trusting that person wholly, and being able to inhabit their thoughts. Falcon got a sympathetic look from Bonesaw, who had emerged from his hiding spot.

“How did you do that?” Bonesaw asked. “You didn’t have a clean line of sight.”

“EXACTO rounds,” Falcon said. “Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance bullets. Compliments of DARPA. Advanced bullets that veer off course halfway through flight to hit a moving target. I can’t wait until Ghostrider invents them for the handgun.”

Ghostrider chuckled, despite how terrible she was feeling. “Not my department.” She exhaled heavily. “Vortex and Falcon, chuck the bodies. I’ll liaise pick-up of the Osprey and we clear out.” Vortex and Falcon jumped to their tasks. “I hope you didn’t need him,” Ghostrider said to Bonesaw.

Bonesaw shook his head.

“How close are you to finding your British arms dealer?”

“Hopefully sooner than later.”

“Can you do me a favor?”

“For you? Anything.”

“Ping MI-6 and GCHQ for any news on EMP and Dr. Benjamin Hunters. Let me know if anything comes up? The Shadow Factory is worried about Jester’s recent spike in activity. Maybe our work is related? We’ll be on the team like the good, old days?”

Bonesaw smiled fondly at Ghostrider, remembering some of their crazy antics that they pulled off on their first mission together. “Wouldn’t that be a hoot and a half? I’ll compile what I can.”

“Stay safe.” Ghostrider leaned forward and hugged her friend.

He gave her a crooked grin. “I have your blessing. The blessing of Ghostrider means nothing can hurt me.” He made a lazy salute, shoved his hands deep in his pockets, and walked way. “Enjoy the rest of the Malaysian conference.”

Ghostrider rolled her eyes. “Another afternoon of being bored to tears. Sounds delightful.”

Bonesaw shrugged, but didn’t look over his shoulder back and Ghostrider. “You signed up for it.”

\---

Queenie sat with her back against the table. Her legs were outstretched, her ankles crossed and propped on the edge of the bed. Queenie listened to every word exchanged at the airfield and smoked her third cigarette of the morning. Every time she smoked a cigarette, she offered on to Michael Harrison, who was sitting next to her and hunched over his laptop. He declined all three offers.

Queenie flicked her finished cigarette into the ashtray on the table and rose to feet. “I’ll be in touch.”  She ruffled Michael’s hair and left him alone in the hotel room.


	14. Homebound

“You’re back a day early,” Clive said with some surprise as he entered the warehouse. Richard had arrived an hour earlier to return Dan’s audiobook to its hiding place and make himself some tea.

“Yeah,” Richard replied, leaning back in his chair. “I worked my way through most of the calculus problems, but I’m stuck on a few of them. I was wondering if you’d help me out. I think Dan will be super impressed with me if I finish it.”

Clive’s lips formed a tight frown as he pulled his chair over to Richard’s desk. It wasn’t so much what Richard said that was wrong, but it was the way he said it. Clive tamped down the niggling feeling he had in the back of his head, telling himself that he jumping to conclusions.

“I can’t wait to see Dan’s face when I show her,” Richard said excitedly when Clive helped Richard finish the last calculus problem. They had also gone back and double-checked Richard’s work. “Do you know what time she’s coming home tonight?”

“She left around 20:00 last night our time and with a 16-hour flight, I estimate she’ll be back around 14:00 today.”

“Will Dan be coming in?”

Clive shook his head. “No. She said she had some personal business to attend to when she landed; won’t be in until tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Richard replied. He sounded very disappointed, both that Dan wouldn’t be coming in and that she hadn’t contacted him over the past four days.

The niggling feeling returned and Clive shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Deciding to bit the bullet, Clive said, “Before you tell me off, saying that it’s none of my business, let me tell you that it is my business. Avery is the only family I have, aside from my daughter. It’s obvious that you have affections for Avery and that she returns those affections to an extent.”

“She does?” Richard blurted out. He had hoped that Dan liked him, but he thought she was being nice because that was just who she was. Dan was flirty with everyone. Clive gave Richard a sideways look, which answered Richard’s question.

Clive exhaled deeply. “The point is, I’m asking you not pursue her. Not unless you’re absolutely sure that you can handle her. I know she’s exciting because she’s so powerful and unique and vibrant; she’s like a character out of a James Bond novel… Including all the bad aspects.

“She was tortured and broken in Palestine. Unlike you and the James Bond characters you play, she can’t put the pain down and walk away. No matter how hard we try, we will never understand a fraction of what she struggles with. So I’m asking you to not play the game at all.” Clive looked at his hands and picked absently at the hem of his shirt. “Besides, Avery has someone waiting for her.”

“Jason McAllister?”

Clive raised an eyebrow at Richard. “How do you know Jason?” he asked with a slight hint of skepticism.

“He’s the DARPA/Navy liaison. I found him while doing a Google search of the work you do. He’s also my Navy combat trainer for the film.”

Clive nodded, accepting Richard’s half-truth of an answer. “Richard, unless you can promise me that you’ll take care of her like Jason would, then promise me that you’ll let Jason take care of her.” He placed a comforting hand on Richard’s shoulder. “Please.” He gave a little squeeze. “Be her friend, but don’t start her on a path where you can’t follow.”

\---

Richard’s hands tingled with excitement when he heard the ping of a new text message. It was late Sunday afternoon, meaning Dan should be back from her trip.

          _Home!_

Rather than responded to her text with a text, Richard dialed her number. He pressed his phone against his ear, his excitement increasing with each ring.

“What’s this?” Dan asked as she answered her phone on the fourth ring. “Are we making social calls now?”

“Would you rather I not?”

“No, no. Surprising, but not unwelcome.” She tapped the fingers of her left hand on the edge of her desk. “What’s up?”

“I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me.” Dan didn’t respond right away, so Richard hastily added, “I want you to help me with my character. I want to run some lines with you, to make sure that I sound right; I did some research while you were gone and got a different feel for Alex.”

Dan laughed. “The pause was because I was thinking if I wanted to go out or have you come over. I just swung by DARPA.” There was silence on the line for a few more seconds. “Come over in 45 minutes and bring pizza. I’ve already got a really great pinot noir. I'll text you my address.”

“Sounds great!” Richard swallowed an excited, but nervous, lump in his throat. “See you soon.”

“TTYL,” Dan replied. She hung up first.

“Okay,” Richard said, exhaling deeply. “First, order pizza.” He called the concierge downstairs to ask for a recommendation and if they delivered. He didn’t know what kind of pizza Dan liked, but he figured that she would eat anything he picked. He decided on one supreme and one chicken pesto.

“Alright…” He clapped his hands together and looked around his hotel room. He lifted one arm and gave himself a sniff. “Shower!” he cried as he frantically peeled clothes off and jumped into the still cold stream of water. He quickly showered, toweled himself off, and groomed himself. He shaved his face, fully aware of Dan’s preference for clean-faced men.

As Richard finished dressing himself, he noticed that it was 15 minutes until he needed to be at Dan’s place. He bolted downstairs and hailed a cab and was on his way. In the taxi ride over to her place, he thought to himself, _I can’t kill this stupid grin. I feel like a teenager about go on his first date._

\---

Richard couldn’t say he was surprised by the general lack of décor when he walked into Dan’s small, two-bedroom apartment. Everything was pristine, neutral toned, and exactly in its proper place. What amazed him the most were the bookcases that went from floor to ceiling, shoved full of books and research journals.

Dan’s hair was still a bit damp from her own rushed shower. She wore it down and Richard almost couldn’t handle the casualness of her appearance, even though she wore her usual V-neck t-shirt and military trousers combination.

“Did you bring pizza?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I ordered it to be delivered here.” He followed her into her small kitchen and she poured him a glass of wine. “This is excellent,” he hummed as he took a second sip.

“Complements of Vortex; he is quite talented when it comes to picking out wines.” She shrugged. “Want to see the rest of my apartment?”

When Dan showed Richard her bedroom, his mouth dropped open in surprise. Everything about the room contradicted with the personality that Richard had built around Dan. She was a tough, masculine woman; yet her bedroom looked like something a 12-year-old want-to-be princess would rejoice at. The room was painted a soft lilac and the bookcase next to the desk was filled with picture frames, stuffed animals, and weaponry.

"I'm really confused right now." Richard admitted.

"By what?" Dan asked.

"This is... you?"

Dan raised an eyebrow at Richard. "Just because I build railguns and serve in the military for a living, it doesn't mean I'm not a woman. I still value my friends and family. My favorite color is purple. Sometimes I like dressing up and having dinner parties."

There was a knock on the door. “Pizza,” Dan said with a smile. She ushered Richard out of her room and closed the door behind her.

\---

“Shut up!” Dan hissed at Richard, leaning forward towards the television screen. “This is a great part.”

Her eyes lit up as she watched Tom Cruise strut across the bar when the juke box played his song. Richard rolled his eyes, not sure when Dan loved _Top Gun_ so much. It was a ridiculous, homoerotic film with little to no significant plot. He had to look away during the sand volleyball scene because it was just too much camp to handle. _It must be an American thing_ , he thought to himself.

Richard suddenly noticed the small vacancy under his arm Dan had left when she leaned forward. He had his arm propped along the back of the couch, loosely wrapped around Dan’s shoulders. He liked the warmth of her body snuggled against his.

“That’s what you said for the last scene,” Richard whined.

“Shut up!” Dan cried, her eyes still riveted to the screen. “Don’t ruin the ending.”

Richard laughed and replied, “I have a feeling that you’ve seen this multiple times and already know the ending.” He reached for the remote and turned off the television. Dan whipped her head around to glare at him. “It goes kind of like this,” Richard said while cupping her face with one hand and wrapping his arm around her waist. Richard pulled Dan to him and kissed her hard on the lips.

Dan was surprised at first and remained as still as a board. But as Richard continued to kiss her, she relaxed into his touch. Her lips parted and Richard used that an as invitation for his tongue to explore her mouth. She gently nipped his tongue, letting it scrape against her teeth as he pulled back.

Dan sighed in pleasure and wrapped her arms around Richard’s neck.

 _This is wrong_ , Richard suddenly thought. _We’re both a little bit drunk. I’m really horny. And she’s a little broken. I promised Clive I wouldn’t. And Jason._ But he knew he needed this as much as she did. It had been several months to years since either of them had sex; this was the only way he could ever let go of his pent up sexual frustration towards her. The feeling of her body pressed against his was so much better than how he imagined it.

Richard lied back on the couch and pulled Dan on top of him. She moved to straddle his hips. His hands roamed up and down her body, feeling her curves. One of his hands found purchase on her breast; the other hand gently squeezed her ass.

Dan’s hands roamed down his chest, feeling his strong muscles underneath the fabric. They stopped kissing for the shortest amount of time needed for him to peel off his shirt and for her to admire the view. Dan bent over and trailed kisses from the soft spot behind his ear to the flesh under his jaw and down his neck.

There was a warm coiling in Richard’s lower belly as he craved Dan. _This is wrong_ , Richard thought again. _I know we will regret this in the morning…_

His thoughts were interrupted when Dan unbuttoned his jeans and undid his fly. She palmed his half-hardened prick through the fabric of his pants. Richard sat upright and Dan wrapped her legs around his waist. He gasped at the friction and lost all resolve to stop himself.

_Fuck!  I want her. I need her. I don’t care if it’s complicated with her ex or Jason or Vortex or whatever she wants to call him. I have to have her. Right now._

With Dan still wrapped around him, Richard stood up and carried her to the bedroom.

\---

Richard woke up, rutting into his mattress.

He groaned because waking up instantly killed the sexual release he so desired. “Fuck,” he said as he rolled onto his back. Richard placed his hands over his eyes. _It’s one thing to fancy your co-worker. It’s another to have sex dreams about said co-worker._ With a heavy sigh, Richard threw back and covers and climbed out of bed to beat one out in the shower before heading to work.


	15. Nightmares

“Want a ride home?” Myles asked.

Avery was in a very, very unpleasant mood. The virtual debriefing that took place on the plane ride back to Arlington had ended in an all-out, blame-shifting shouting match between Avery, Jason, and Kevin. Myles had hidden in the cockpit of the plane, praying that the argument would end as soon as possible. It reminded him a little too much of his parents before the divorce. And it broke his heart that what had once been one of the most effective ghost units had become so splintered. Avery and Jason still managed to operate incredibly well together, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Myles was also worried about Avery because she was still skittish from the knowledge that Jester actively hunting her. Avery felt like her skin was stretched too tight across her bones and her stomach churned violently. Her hands and forearms felt like they were on fire with a million little ants were crawling all over them.

“No, thanks,” Avery replied, stretching her legs. It was only 15:00, Sunday afternoon and it was perfect opportunity for her to clear her headspace.

Myles raised an eyebrow at Avery. “It’s 20 miles to your apartment.”

“I know.”

Myles opened his mouth to say something, but Avery cut him off by offering a weak smile and a pat on the shoulder. “I’ll be fine,” she said softly.

Myles nodded and turned away. As he climbed into his car, he remembered something that one of his mentors had told him during field training; Myles was doing a case study of Avery’s and Jason’s work at the time. _“From the outside looking in, we might think that their actions are off-piste or radical. But to them, everything is simply the next calculated move because they know that whatever their partner is doing is for both their benefit.”_

Avery suppressed the urge to let out a feral yell as she closed the front door of her apartment behind her. She felt much better after her run, but the burning sensation had not gone away. Avery tossed her keys onto the kitchen table and paced around her living room. She clenched her fists as tight as she could for as long as she could, then slowly extended her fingers as far as they would extend. The burning eased slightly, so Dan repeated the exercise a few more times.

Avery glanced at the clock, 19:30. She considered calling Richard up for dinner, but decided she was too tired to be pleasant and social. Now that she wasn’t in constant motion, the exhaustion was starting to settle into her bones. Avery took a long and hot shower, skipped dinner, and crawled into bed. As soon as her head connected with her pillow, she was asleep.

\---

_The timer displayed three seconds left. Snowfall offered a kind smile to Ghostrider. “Take care of Winters and MJ.” Ghostrider knew that tone; it was a tone Snowfall always used whenever she could sense Ghostrider’s anger was about to break loose._

_The timer beeped._

_Ghostrider looked straight into Snowfall’s eyes. They maintained eye contact as the interrogator pressed his own gun to Snowfall’s temple and pulled the trigger. The gunshot rang out through the room. Snowfall’s green eyes went dull and her body went limp._

_The henchman made a move to remove the body, but the interrogator stopped him. “Leave the body here. Let our friend think about the consequences of her actions.” The henchman unceremoniously dropped Snowfall’s dead body to the ground. “Make sure she looks at it,” the interrogator said flatly as he kicked Snowfall’s dead body onto its side and stepped over it._

_Even though she was a professional, Ghostrider couldn’t shake the nauseating feeling that came from the thick spray of Snowfall’s blood that covered her in a sticky layer. It didn’t help that every time she adverted her eyes, the henchman would slap her hard across the face with the back of his hand._

_Several hours later, long after the sun had set, the interrogator returned with a large spotlight mounted on a tall stand. He shown the light brightly into Ghostrider’s face and she squinted back at him. You will give up Dr. Hunters,” the interrogator said calmly._

_Ghostrider couldn’t see, but could hear the sound of flesh being cut and liquid dripping into a bucket._

_“Tilt her back," the interrogator ordered._

_The henchman tied a burlap sack over her head and tilted back the chair she was tied to. Ghostrider mentally braced herself; it wouldn’t be the first time she had been water boarded. But she was completely unprepared for the metallic taste of blood in her mouth._

_Snowfall’s blood._

_“You will give me what I want. Or you will be bathed in the blood of everyone we’ve had to kill because you won’t cooperate.”_

_Ghostrider violently struggled and screamed, but buried any knowledge of Dr. Hunters deep down within her. She vowed that no matter what happened, she was not going to let them win. She vowed to herself that they had to kill her first before they got the information._

_The interrogator continued the torture until he ran out of blood. The henchman put the chair back down in the up-right position. The interrogator tilted the spotlight so that it no longer shown in Ghostrider’s face. He stepped forward and Ghostrider made a pained gagging noise even though she was not under duress. She blinked several times, trying to make sense of what she was seeing._

_Her interrogator was Richard Armitage._

Avery woke up in a panic and thinking that she would find herself covered in blood. In her sleep, she had tangled herself up in her bedsheets and was tightly curled into the fetal position. Avery rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, getting her breathing under control by repeating to herself that it was only a nightmare.

 _Richard is most definitely not Jester because Joshua McCourt is Jester_ , Avery thought. _Richard is a good man and cannot even begin to conceive the horrors that is second nature to McCourt. They just got mashed together in my dreams because I’m afraid of these feelings I have for Richard._

She turned her head and stared at the digital clock on her nightstand for a few minutes before registering what time it was; it was 04:25. With a sigh, Avery decided that it was as good a time as any to get up and go to work.

\---

“Is that you, Hollywood?” Dan asked without opening her eyes or sitting up. She had her feet on her desk, her legs stretched out and crossed.

“Yup!” Richard replied enthusiastically. “Welcome home, Dan.”

Dan took a deep breath in through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. She put her feet on the ground and spun in her chair to face Richard, a big smile on her face. She was about to ask Richard how his weekend was, but decided against it when she saw the slightly guilty expression on his face. Her brows furrowed. “Something wrong?”

“You’re rather chipper this morning,” Richard commented as he perched on the edge of his desk. “Please stop. It is weirding me out.”

“Jet lag.” Dan lied. She shrugged and spun herself in a circle in her chair; she was still trying to sort her thoughts on her feeling towards Richard and overcompensated for how uncomfortable she was about the whole business by being friendly. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Richard broke eye contact and looked down at his feet. “It’s nothing. Just having weird dreams,” he awkwardly mumbled out. He brushed off imaginary dust from the trousers at his thighs. He had missed Dan over the past few days and he struggled to find a way to tell her that without directly stating it. “I missed the tea service,” he said, picking up the travel mug of tea that Dan always had ready for him.

Dan laughed and Richard added, “Anyway, I finished the calculus packet.” He pulled the packet out from his backpack and rubbed his chin with his free hand as he gave the packet to Dan.

“Color me impressed,” Dan replied as she examined his work. “Was that what Winters meant when he said that you had a surprise for me? I thought you’d spent the weekend watching spy movies and TV.”

“I did a lot of that, too. I re-visited Lucas North and John Porter. Read le Carré’s _The Night Manager_ , _Tinker Tailor_ , and _The Constant Gardner_ ; then watched their film adaptations. Also watched lots of James Bond and Jason Bourne, _Body of Lies_ , _The Hurt Locker,_ _Zero Dark Thirty_.”

“You really did your homework!”

Richard nodded. “But I also found time to relax.”

“That’s right; I saw your selfie.”

Like Dan had suggested, Richard had taken the time to enjoy a bubble bath and some wine. Not wanting to seem too eager to remain in contact with her, Richard posted the photo of himself in the bath to his Twitter account instead of sending it directly to Dan. Richard figured that the photo would eventually come to Dan’s attention. He had a feeling that there was someone at DARPA who’s only job was to monitor his online activities to make sure he didn’t leak any sensitive information about the clandestine work going on at the facility; whoever’s job that was would probably get a kick out of the photo and forward it to Dan.

Richard chuckled. “Did you like it?”

“I like that you managed to solve the calculus problems. Smart is sexy. And like I said before, I prefer my men clean-shaven.” She winked at Richard. “You know, like Jason.”

Richard shrugged with an air nonchalance. “I like to think I’m prettier than Jason.”

“I wouldn’t be able to tell, with you hiding your face under all that hair.” Dan stood up and placed her right hand on his left shoulder; she applied a little pressure, if trying to keep Richard rooted to the spot. Dan turned head just enough to meet Richard’s eyes out of the corner of hers. “How’d you know Jason was with me?”

Richard swallowed a lump in his throat. _She knows that neither she nor Jason told me. And Clive didn’t know. She knows that broke her trust._ “Hm?” Richard asked, purposefully obtuse.

“You heard me perfectly well.” She gave him the glare that made him squirm.

“I Google’d you,” Richard blurted out. The words spilled out of his mouth. “While reading about some of your work with Clive, I saw the name Jason McAllister. I Google’d him and found out that he is the DARPA/Navy liaison. You are a high ranking DARPA/Navy employee, so on balance of probability you both know each other. I know you both separately and you share a lot of the same habits. You were going on a trip and Jason said he had to work with his ex, so I assumed that it was you. If he was working with you, then it would make sense he would be on the same trip.”

One corner of Dan’s mouth turned upward; she was slightly impressed with Richard’s reasoning. And relieved that Jason was right; she didn’t give Richard enough credit for his cleverness. “There are hundreds of thousands of women affiliated with DARPA or the Navy who could also be Jason’s ex. Our similar habits could be virtue of having the similar jobs, as opposed to intimacy.”

Richard fought the urge to admit that he snooped around her office and found a photo of the two of them together. “Lucky guess?” he asked nervously.

Dan watched him, waiting for him to say anything else. Richard’s hands clenched into fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “What’s bothering you?” Dan asked gently, removing the pressure she pushed onto his shoulder. “It’s more than just weird dreams.”

“Nightmares,” Richard lied. _I’m falling in love with you and I dreamed we had sex. Clive warned me to stay away and sometimes you terrify me. I want to study you and fix your broken parts. And the complications with Jason just make the pursuit that much more challenging and interesting._

“That makes two of us.” Dan gave Richard a few awkward pats on the shoulder before withdrawing her hand. “I’ve got a fucking itchy trigger finger this morning.” She grabbed her safety glasses from her desk before walking towards her SUV.

Richard waited for her to finish her train of thought, but realized that she wasn’t going to. “Wait, where are you going?”

“Shooting range,” Dan replied over her shoulder.

“Right,” he mumbled under his breath. Richard kicked himself in the head for not making that simple conclusion. He grabbed his own pair of safety glasses from his desk and caught up with her.

\---

Richard always knew that Dan handled guns significantly better than she let on, but he never really understood how good she was with them. After two hours of practicing, Richard decided to simply watch Dan destroy target after target.

Dan fired three bullets with the gun in her right hand, and then dropped her right hand and caught the gun midair with her left hand. She fired four bullets with her left hand, and at the same time pulled a second gun from its holster on her hip with her right hand. She fired three bullets a fraction of a second after the fourth bullet from the gun in left hand fired. Dan let go of both guns, spun in a quick circle, caught both guns, and fired four shots simultaneously.

“Fucking hell,” Richard breathed. All of Dan’s shots hit their mark exactly, either in the center of the head or the center of the chest on the silhouette target.

Dan made a motion with her hand to Richard and he handed over the rifle that he was supposed to be practicing with. Just as she swung the rifle up to her shoulder, her phone rang. Her eyes were stuck to the name displayed on her mobile phone. “Sorry, Hollywood. I have to take this.” She turned her back to Richard and pressed the phone up against her ear.

“Give me some good news,” Dan said.

“G1 BHEMP walking in Columbus. The team needs to repo it tomorrow,” Kevin McAllister replied. _There’s a first generation EMP device in Columbus, Ohio. You, Vortex, and Falcon need to repossess it tomorrow._

“You're shitting me. G1 BHEMP has long been taken out.” _All the first generation EMP devices were destroyed._

“Let’s hope that’s the case. Sending you coordinates and briefing; rendezvous with the team at 13:30 tomorrow.”

“Anything else?”

“No flamethrowers.” _Don’t let your anger burn everything to the ground. Keep it in check and everything will be fine._

Dan didn’t respond.

“What was it?” Richard asked when Dan slipped her phone back into her pocket.

“Another short-term deployment.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Where to? What for?”

“Rule number two, Hollywood.” _I will not ask questions for things I do not need to know the answers to._

“Can I join you?” Richard asked. “Before you left on your last trip, you promised that I could come with you on your next one.”

Dan shook her head. “I meant that for the trip I’d be taking to visit the live railgun, Big MJ. You can’t come on this trip.”

“You promised! I’ve been security vetted and medically cleared. Please!”

“Richard, I cannot guarantee your safety. Therefore, I cannot take you with me.”

“Will they be shooting at you? Why is my safety a concern?”

Dan didn’t know how to explain the situation to Richard without telling him more than what he needed to know. If she said that there were going to potential hostile enemies, Richard would go wild with concern. Dan was surprised how calm Richard was about situation compared to when she told him about her Malaysia trip. “Just… trust me.”

“You don’t you trust me?” Richard countered. “Trust is a two way street, Dan.”

Dan crossed her arms over her chest and frowned back at Richard. Richard waited for her think about his words. If Dan was completely honest, she wanted to take Richard with her on the trip. He would be completely useless during the mission, but she somehow found the thought about bringing the man along oddly comforting. Dan’s emotions had been one hell of a rollercoaster ride, and she grabbed at anything that made her feel relatively steady.

“Only on three conditions,” she finally said.

“Name ‘em.”

“Cut the lovely locks, shave the face, and when anyone tells you to run…” Dan looked straight into Richard’s eyes, conveying the seriousness of the last condition, “You will fucking run as fast as you fucking can. There will be none of the ‘being the hero’ business. We say run, you fucking run away.”

Richard offered his hand to shake. “With pleasure I will meet your three conditions.”

Dan tightly gripped Richard’s hand and shook it.


	16. Preparations

Dan strapped her hands into a pair of strange looking gloves. The glove was more like a half-glove because the fabric covered only her thumb, first two fingers, and half of the palm. “Ready to meet IGOR 5?” Dan asked over her shoulder as she stood facing an empty wall in her office. She had her hands placed in front of her, as if praying; the gloves lit up red to blue to green, a thin line of light running along each finger.

“Your computer?” Richard asked.

She then moved her hands apart to be at shoulder width, her palms facing the wall. Richard’s mouth popped open when a digital display appeared on the wall. He knew it was a two-dimensional projection, but the display looked three-dimensional and hovered in the air. Richard reached out and moved his hand around through the display, fascinated with the technology he thought you could only find in science fiction movies.

“Kenny Harris, who works in a different department here at DARPA, gave this to me as a gift a last year. He’s offered to update my software, but I declined because IGOR 5 does what I need it to do just fine.” Dan held her hands in a comfortable position in front of her; she made small waving motions and flexed her fingers to manipulate the display. She pulled up the file Kevin sent her about the upcoming mission. “I could just show this to you on a regular computer monitor, but this always ore fun. There’s haptic feedback built into the system. You can also engage an audio communication function, but it isn’t necessary for this briefing.”

“Haptic feedback?”

“Touch sensation.”

Richard peeled his eyes away from the display to make an amused expression at Dan. “You’re showing off.”

“If I trust you enough to come with me tomorrow, then I trust you enough to show you some secret technology.” Dan pinched the fingers of her right hand together and made a motion like throwing whatever she pinched onto the wall. One large image appeared in the center and a series of smaller images lined up on the bottom of the display.

“Who’s that?” Richard asked.

“Jeffrey Wilkinson. He’s some teenage punk in Columbus, Ohio, that has claimed to have stolen DARPA EMP technology.” Dan reached forward and shaped her hand as if she was holding the base of a large cup in her palm; as she turned her hand, the picture of Wilkinson rotated, providing a 360-degree view of the person. “The mission is to retrieve the device from Mr. Wilkinson if it is legitimate.”

“How will you do that? Retrieve the device?”

“You don’t need to know that.”

“How does IGOR know what his back looks like?”

“IGOR collates all the information in the database, allowing it to then render full 3D images.”

“How will you know if the device is legitimate?” Dan chuckled and raised an eyebrow at Richard, as if she couldn’t believe Richard was asking such a stupid question. Richard felt a little red creeping into his cheeks and scratched his nose. He mumbled, “Right, you’re the professional.”

Dan’s chuckle converted into a full laugh. “I invented them!”

Dan made a swiping motion and the image changed to a device that looked more a large, metal camping lamp. “This is what we call G1 BHEMP; it’s a first generation EMP device that knocks out all electrical activity for a 2.5 mile radius for an hour.” Dan brought her hands close together, and then rapidly pulled them apart; the image enlarged so Richard could a better look at the details of the device. She made the same cupping motion to give Richard a 360-degree view of the device.

Then Dan snapped the fingers of both her hands at the same time and the device disassembled. Its main parts were isolated in different areas of the display, so that Dan would be able to interact with each component of the EMP device separately if she wanted. Dan explained what each of the main parts did, marking the display images as if where writing on them.

She pulled down the image of the EMP device with her left hand, then selected two images with her right hand and threw them up into the main workspace. “You already know Vortex.” Richard nodded, recognizing the stern face of Jason McAllister. “The man on the right is Myles Terrence, or Falcon.”

“He looks young,” Richard commented.

“Young, but highly competent,” Dan replied. “Falcon is the mission’s tactical support. You will be sitting with him in the nest, doing nothing. You will not disturb or interrupt Falcon in any way during the mission; I have given him permission to tranquilize you if he finds you too annoying.”

“You’re joking about the tranquilizing me if I get too annoying, right?”

“Not this time.” Dan’s expression was flat, as if she couldn’t understand why Richard would think she was making a joke right then. “He originally wanted to take you out.”

“Take me out?”

“Discreetly, of course.”

Richard’s face contorted into an expression of horror and dismay. _What the fuck is wrong with these people? Dan has to be joking because there is no way she would let that happen; it’s too ridiculous. But she sure doesn’t seem like it._

“Did you really think I would let any harm come to my lovely tourist?” Dan laughed and shook her head. “You’ll get along great with Falcon; he’s a real sweetheart.”

“That was a bad joke.”

Dan shrugged. “I thought you’d learn by now all my jokes are bad ones.”

Dan moved her hands and a map of Columbus appeared. “Moving on… The target is here.” She pointed at the house where Wilkinson lived. “You’ll be posted here.” She pointed to a park three miles away from the house. “It’s outside the range of the EMP and you’ll be away from hostiles. Falcon will be armed, but you will not be. You will wear a bullet-proof vest with a built-in monitoring system, just in case shit hits the fan.” She marked three more stops. “SWAT will be on stand-by at these locations. Memorize them in case you are asked to run.”

Dan pulled up a small text window and her fingers rapidly moved as if she were typing on a physical keyboard. Dan made a throwing motion with her left hand the email was sent. It had been done so quickly that Richard didn’t catch what the message she had sent out was.

“Letting my team know you’ll be joining us,” Dan said. Richard realized she had truly been screwing with him just to screw with him when she said Falcon had her permission to tranquilize him; they didn’t know that he was even coming on the mission.

She then made a motion with her both hands like a conductor ending a performance. The display shut off and Dan peeled her gloves off. She placed them in a case and tucked the case into one of the secure cabinets. “Ready for lunch?”

\---

After lunch and a brief stop for Richard to purchase shaving equipment, Dan and Richard returned to Richard’s hotel room. Richard closed the lid of the toilet and sat down, looking at his reflection in the mirror. Dan stood behind him, an electric hair clipper in hands.

“Take off your shirt.”

Richard turned in his seat to wiggle his eyebrows at Dan. “Yes, ma’am.” In one swift movement, Richard pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it onto the bathroom counter.

The witty response Dan had dried up in her mouth. This wasn’t the first time she had seen Richard shirtless, but it was the first time she could admire the broadness of his shoulders and the strong slope of his back muscles. She fought the urge to run her hand along his spine.

“Like what you see?” Richard joked.

“I’m not complaining.”

“How about now?” Richard brought his arms up and flexed.

Dan rolled her eyes and gently shoved Richard’s arms downs. He flinched slightly at the sensation of her cold hands against his warm skin. Without any preamble, she thumbed the clipper on and cut a strip of hair on the back of his head. Richard closed his eyes and suppressed a giggle, his skin tingling from the vibrating razor on the base of his neck. Ignoring Richard’s reaction, Dan continued cutting Richard’s hair.

After a few minutes, Richard heard the hair clipped turned off and a jar opening. Dan’s cold hands ran across his scalp a few times. He enjoyed the feeling of her firm fingertips working his hair into place.

“I’m done,” Dan said.

Richard opened his eyes and blinked a few times, letting his vision adjust to the light. He turned his head left and right, approving of Dan’s handiwork. She had trimmed his hair short on the sides, but left a small length on top so he could style his hair. “I’m impressed; it looks good. Like a shorter version of John Porter.”

“Thanks. That’s what I was going for.” Dan brushed some loose strands of hair from Richard’s shoulders and back. “Now shave your face and we’ll see if you’re prettier than Jason.”

They did a little reshuffling in the bathroom. Dan took over Richard’s seat on the toilet and Richard stood in front of the sink.

“It’s okay if you watch,” Richard said as he deftly applied shaving cream to his face.

“My own private show? I don’t think I could afford it.” Dan was embarrassed that Richard had picked up on her anticipation for the sight of him shaving, but she wasn’t going to admit it.

“It’ll be free just this one time.”

Dan pulled out her wallet, which was just a simple cardholder, and checked its contents. She kissed her teeth and then said, “Sorry, but I don’t have any ones.”

“I’ll take twenties.”

Dan laughed, pulled out a twenty, and tucked the bill into Richard’s rear pocket. She gave the ass cheek under the pocket she had inserted the twenty dollar bill a good pat.

“Ah, that will cost you another twenty. Watching if free; touching costs.”

“Shut up and shave, Hollywood.”

As Richard shaved, Dan entertained herself by splitting her attention between watching Richard shave and checking her email.

“Well… fuck me sideways,” Dan breathed out when Richard splashed water onto his face to remove the excess shaving cream. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but slipped out.

Richard laughed and smirked at Dan. “Gladly.” _She probably means it as a joke, but she has no idea how much I want to take her to bed right now. I’m sorry Clive, but I might have to break my promise._ Richard knelt down and placed his hands on Dan’s knees.

“Do hotels give out free condoms?” Dan leaned forwards, their faces a few centimeters from touching.

“We can ask.”

Dan reached out and ran her fingertips along Richard’s smooth jawline. “I could touch you all day.”

“Please do,” Richard growled back. _Think of dying puppies. Think of dying puppies_ , Richard chanted silently. He could feel the blood rushing to his genitals and he tried to kill the sex drive before it could completely take over his thoughts. Richard closed the distance between him and Dan just a little more, waiting for Dan to make the first move. _I’ll do 90% of the work, but she has to do the last 10%._

Dan gave him a coy smile and caressed his cheek; Richard leaned into the touch. When they made eye contact again, Dan noticed just how dilated Richard’s pupils had become and was snapped back to the reality of the situation. She dropped her hand to her lap and said, “Maybe in another lifetime.”  She stood up. “I have to get back to DARPA. I need to update some software before tomorrow. You… you stay here and do what you do.”

Richard nodded and stood up, trying not to let his disappointment show. He grabbed his shirt from the counter and pulled it over his head. “What should I wear tomorrow?”

“Dark colors. Something comfortable and that you can run in.” Dan’s hands were tapping their patterns away on her thighs.

 _Definitely a nervous tick_ , Richard thought as he looked at her hands. _I made her uncomfortable. Shit._ “And what time will you be coming by?”

“Around 08:00. I’ll call before I head over here.”

Dan turned on her heel and let herself out of Richard’s hotel room. She calmly walked to her SUV, but as soon as she closed the door, she leaned forward and rested her head on the steering wheel. “Whatever holy deity that it out there watching over me, please make it stop,” Dan said. “I am not strong enough to handle this.” She suddenly burst out into giggles, thinking of the sexual tension that sat thick between them. _Jason and I were never like this. I wonder if this is why people enjoy falling in love. It feels really good and addictive, but it’s scary. Fuck. What am I doing?_

As soon as the door closed behind Dan, Richard rubbed his chin and let out a deep breath. _Fuck_ , Richard thought. _I scared her away. Way to fucking go, Armitage._ He started pacing up and down his room. _How am I supposed to talk about this with her? Should I talk about it with her? What am I doing?_ Richard flopped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. Then he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “This is not what I signed up for.”

\---

Jason was waiting for Dan at DARPA when she returned. He was sitting on the edge of Clive’s desk and talking to Clive, who was sitting in his chair. Jason had one arm folded across his chest, the elbow of his other arm was propped on his folded arm and his fist was against his forehead.

Clive made a grim expression when he made eye contact with Dan. She knew immediately that they had been talking about her. With exception to the fact that both Jason and Dan were CIA field agents, there were no secrets between the three of them.

“I have to update Hien before we utilize her tomorrow,” Dan said, standing equidistant from the two men.

“That’s not why I’m here,” Jason replied, looking up. He shift his weight and placed both hands at his sides on the desk. His fingers curled around the edge and gripped firmly. “Why are you bringing Armitage?” He didn’t look up from his feet when he asked the question.

“He asked. I couldn’t dissuade him and there’s no risk from him being there, so I agreed he could come.”

Jason slowly lifted his eyes to meet Dan’s. _You’ve got to be shitting me with that answer._

Dan held Jason’s gaze. _What do you want me to say? I was under the impression that this didn’t matter to you._

Jason looked back down at his feet and scratched his nose. _You’re suddenly putting a lot of trust in Armitage_. He looked back up at her. _Just explain it so I understand._

Unlike Myles, Clive was used to Dan’s and Jason’s silences. He simply watched the two and waited.

“I honestly don’t know,” Dan said aloud. “I think it’s because he’s different. Because he’s not part of our world. He’s normal; he’s fun in a way we never were. He’s naïve about our work and I want to share the good parts with him.”

“Sarah said a similar thing to me, you know,” Clive said. “It makes sense.” He shrugged. “For what it’s worth, Richard might not be a bad thing for you.”

“You’re trying to change the circumstances,” Jason said. “You’re easing him in and seeing how he holds up… You really love him.” As he said the words, Dan noticed a sense of melancholy descend on Jason. He wasn’t angry or disappointed or jealous about the fact, but he was resigned. _I understand. I don’t like this business, but I understand why you need it._

Dan bit her lower lip. “I think I love him, but at the same time I don’t think because I still love you,” she said to Jason. She shook her head. “I don’t know. I think he can fix something that you can’t because we’re too much alike. It’s very hard to put into words.”

“That’s love for you. Why do think we have countless numbers of poems and songs and stories about it?” Clive said. “It’s not as straightforward as we were led to believe.” He chuckled, remembering his own experiences with Sarah.

“It’s not fair to you,” Dan mumbled.

“Just another sacrifice to make.” As much as it pained him to let her go, Jason knew that Dan needed a love that he couldn’t, but Richard could, give to her. Jason stood up. “Just… Don’t change too much, because I can’t help you if you do.”

Dan reached out for Jason and he walked into her arms. “Unit GV19 is solid,” she said. _No matter happens with Armitage, I will always love you._ She rubbed circles into Jason’s back. _You never lose the first person you truly love._

Jason tipped her face towards his and gave her a long, chaste kiss. “I know.” He pulled away and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, letting his fingers linger for a moment. He turned away from Dan and clapped his hands together. “Updating Hien… Let’s get to it.”

Dan nodded and led him to her office. As they walked, Dan thought, _I feel so safe with Jason. But I get excited and nervous with Richard. Logically Jason is the right choice, especially given the clandestine nature of our careers. But I… crave Richard. Fuck._


	17. Road Trip

Richard chuckled when he checked himself out in the mirror. _I wonder if she’ll realize I channeled her personality when getting dressed this morning_ , he thought. _Well, she did give vague instructions, so it makes sense if I dress like her. God help us all, though, if I start talking like her, too._

Richard took a seat on the edge of his bed to lace up his running shoes. He wished he had a pair of sturdy boots of the same make as Dan’s, but he knew that if he was going to have to run from danger, he would prefer to wear his running shoes than his own stylish military-imitation boots.

His phone buzzed on the table and he glanced at the brief message.

          _ETA 10._

Richard rolled his shoulders and checked himself out in the mirror once again. A tingle of excitement shot up his spine and he shuddered. _This is most definitely the more exciting part of her job, where all that paperwork plays out in the real world._

With a minute left to spare, Richard trotted outside the hotel and looked around the parking lot for Dan’s SUV. Richard’s heart pounded heavily in his chest and he forgot how to breathe.

Dan was half-sitting on the hood of a sleek and sexy, white McLaren 650S Coupe. For a split second, Richard didn’t know which girl was more beautiful: Dan or the McLaren. She wore her usual fare, except her V-neck t-shirt was maroon instead of grey or black. She opted for her black, square frame sunglasses over her usual lab safety glasses. Dan also wore a military bulletproof vest and had an array of empty holsters strapped on.

Richard stared, committing the image to memory. _I wonder where she got the money to buy such a car. I bet it’s a gift… Fuck, it’s a nice car; I wondering if she’ll let me drive it..._ Once he had the sight burned into his brain, he approached Dan with as much calmness as he could muster in his excitement.

Dan stared off into the distance, too distracted to notice Richard’s stare right away. Richard saw her lips moving, but couldn’t make out what she was saying or who she was talking to. _Is she talking to herself?_ Once he got close enough, he heard Dan say curtly, “Dancing pumpkins.”

“What does that mean? Dancing pumpkins?” Dan didn’t startle; she turned her gaze onto Richard and offered him a tight-lipped smile. Richard returned her smile with a big one of his own and gave her a small wave.

Dan stood up and pulled her keys from her trouser pocket. “Nothing to worry about.” She clicked a button on the keychain and both of the McLaren’s scissor doors swung up. “You ready for our four-hour road trip?”

Richard watched her out of the corner of his eyes as he climbed into the passenger seat, not quite believing her when she said that “dancing pumpkins” was code for “nothing to worry about.” _Oh,_ Richard suddenly realized. _She’s politely to mind my own fucking business. That’s a little odd because she always translates for me._  But he knew that their relationship required a massive amount of trust and he gave her as much as he could.

“In a beauty like this, I think we could drive across America,” Richard replied. He buckled his seatbelt and melted into the plush leather seat. “It’s like being spooned,” he sighed out with his eyes closed.

Dan flicked a switched; the door swung down and closed. She placed her left hand on the center of the steering wheel and turned the key in the ignition. The engine of the McLaren purred to life and the windshield display lit up with a soft blue light. Dan shook her head and chuckled at Richard’s comment. “My favorite feature is the interactive forward display.”

Richard noticed there was hardly any dashboard in the car. Where all the gauges and gadgets should have been, it was windshield.

“You’re riding shotgun, which means you’re also the navigator,” Dan added. “I can have Hien navigate for me, but you might as well make yourself a little bit useful. Go Hien, display map on passenger side with tracker.” A map appeared in the windshield in front of Richard.

“Hien?” Richard asked.

“You know how Iron Man has JARVIS?” Dan asked as she pulled out from the parking lot and started towards the highway. “Well, Hien is my JARVIS.”

“Did you program her? Or was she another gift?”

“Gift from Kenny Harris, the same nerd who made IGOR 5.”

“So… You and Kenny… were you both… at some point… you know...?”

“No, I don’t know,” Dan replied with a slight frown. She knew what Richard was implying, but she determined that if he was going to ask about it, then she would make him be straight-forward.

“You know… doing personal things together?” Richard awkwardly motioned. He was slightly surprised that Dan hadn’t followed his train of thought; it was the second tick mark of the day in the “strange behavior” box.

Dan continued looking at the round and replied, “Of course. We’re friends.”

“Not that kind of friends.”

Dan didn’t dignify Richard’s statement with a response.

Richard finally huffed out, “Did you and Kenny ever date?”

Dan laughed. “I knew what you meant from the beginning. I just wanted you to say it directly.” Richard narrowed his eyes at Dan; he wasn’t angry, but he didn’t want Dan to feel like she had won. Dan shook her head. “Vortex and I had been together for five years by the time I met Kenny. Kenny and I are both nerds and like to share our inventions.”

Dan shrugged. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.” Dan waited and Richard knew that she was playing the same game with him. Richard shrugged and added, “Sharing high level, secret technology… it kind of feels like a love letter between scientists and engineers. So I was curious.”

“Huh; never thought of it like that, but it kind of is.” Dan glanced over at Richard. “Do you mind if I steal the description? I’m going to save it and drop it on Winters one of these days.”

“Yeah, sure. Text me his reaction.”

There was a pause. “Can I talk to Hien?” Richard asked.

“Hien,” Dan said, correcting Richard’s pronunciation. “Vietnamese name.”

“Hien,” Richard parroted Dan’s pronunciation. “What does it mean?”

“Kind of like… Sweet-tempered, gentle.”

“So the exact opposite of you.”

“You could say that. Anyway, all you have to do is say ‘Go Hien,’ and then whatever you want to say.”

Richard cleared his throat. “Go Hien, tell me about puppies.”

“What specifically about puppies?” Hien replied. She had a soft, lilting voice with a slight German accent. “However, I will provide you with the top database results.” A list of links related to puppies appeared in the center of the windshield.

“Golden retrievers?”

“Golden retrievers are large-sized dogs bred to retrieve shot waterfowl during hunting and shooting parties,” Hien replied. An image of an adult and puppy golden retriever appeared on the windshield. “They typically live for 12 years. They’re popular due to their inherent reliable, friendly, and trustworthy behavior and intelligence. I can provide you with a list of where to adopt golden retrievers.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Richard replied. “I was just curious.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Hien replied.

Richard turned towards Dan. “Did your computer just make a joke?”

Dan frowned back at Richard. “It was a warning, not a joke.” Richard swallowed a lump in his throat and Dan laughed at Richard. “I’m just shitting you. Kenny, Vortex, and I are trying to make Hien more personable.” She cleared her throat. “Go Hien, sync my map with the locations of our teammates.” The map zoomed out to display three dots; the blue dot was Dan and Richard, the green dot was Myles, and the yellow dot was Jason.

“Is she synced in Jason’s car, too?” Richard asked.

“Yes. Jason and I updated her last night to all our equipment.”

“Oh, cool.”

\---

Rather than flat-out telling Richard to stop talking, Dan turned on the radio. Gentle classical music wafted throughout from the speakers and Richard experienced orchestral music on a whole new level.

Richard knew that Dan wasn’t a morning person and took the hint, but he had nothing to do while she was driving. _I think I used up all of her social skills until lunch._ He had already taken his time sipping the tea she always had ready for him. He looked over at her a few times, then finally decided to talk about how much he liked the United States. Even when he paused, Dan wouldn’t make any comments to what he had been saying.

Finally after an hour of listening, Dan said, “It’s okay to sit in silence. I would actually prefer it.”

Richard looked chastised. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

To Richard, it felt like the silence was stretching on for eternity. He normally didn’t have the compulsive to fill the empty space with words, but his brain was muddle when around Dan. Richard was thankful that he overcame his unease at never having the right thing to say to Dan, but he wanted to use his words to convince Dan how much he liked her.

The silence was broken by a buzzing. “That’s my phone,” Dan said, pulling her phone from her pocket and docked it where the cigarette holder should have been. Considering that Dan didn’t smoke, Richard thought the modification was rather clever. Her phone connected automatically with the car’s electronics.

“Hello?” Dan asked.

“Auntie A!” a young girl’s voice squealed over the forward speakers of the car. “Daddy says you and Uncle J can’t come for dinner tonight. But it’s my birthday! You both always come over for my birthday.” Richard had to bring a hand up to cover his giggle; he was amused by the pout he could hear in the child’s voice.

“I know; I’m sorry sweetheart. Uncle J and I have to go to work out-of-town.”

“Why do you and Uncle J have to go to work?”

“We both serve in the military. Sometimes we have to travel to keep the bad guys from hurting innocent people.”

“When are you coming home?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Will you bring me a puppy?”

Richard snorted, realizing his maturity level was about that of a five-year-old girl because he had asked Hien about puppies, as well.

“No, you are getting a puppy,” Clive said.

“Sorry, sweetheart. If your father says no puppies, then no puppies,” Dan replied. “I’m going to bring something even better than a puppy.”

“Are you bringing me a new uncle? Because you and Uncle J aren’t getting married anymore?”

“What?” Dan asked.

“Daddy says you have a new boyfriend.”

Dan could hear Clive choking on his saliva. Dan howled with laugher and Richard’s eye nearly popped out of his face. _Do we give people that impression?_ Richard thought. _Has she said something to Clive that she hasn’t yet said to me?_

“What?” MJ asked, totally and utterly confused, while Dan was struggling to regain her breath. She was still too young to understand the complications and drama that came with adult feelings. “Why are you laughing?”

“It’s two words. Two words: boy,” she paused for a second, “friend. I have a new friend at work.”

“Is he in the military, too?”

“Yes.”

Richard’s heart sank into his stomach. He thought that Dan was referring to him as her boy friend, but it was actually the new kid she introduced as Myles Terrence.

“Is he like Uncle J?”

“Yes.”

“Is he coming to my party?”

“Only if you want him to.”

“I want him to.” MJ then launched into a long, one-sided discussion about what her ideal birthday would be like.

“Long-winded, like her father,” Richard mounted to Dan. Dan nodded. “You’re great with children, by the way.”

Dan shook her head and mouthed back, “Just with MJ. She’s like my own daughter; I made a promise to her mother before she died that I would look after MJ as if she was my own daughter.”

“That’s kind of you.”

“Sarah was my best friend. It’s the least I could do for her.”

“Okay,” Dan replied to MJ when she finally stopped talking about all the pink decorations she was having her father put up for her birthday party. “I will make sure to bring him.” Dan beamed at the road in front of her. “Can I talk to you father for a minute?”

There was some noise on the other end of the line as the phone was passed from daughter to father and the speakerphone option was turned off. “What’s up, harlot?”

“I’m going to fucking castrate you.”

“And you kiss gentle-hearted men with that mouth?”

“A little filth is good for the immune system.”

“I can’t believe my daughter looks up to you.”

“Fuck off; it’s a blessing.”

“That’s up for debate. Anyway, TCOY Dan.” Clive paused. “Oh, and invite Richard. There’s no obligation for him to come, but we don’t want to leave _that_ boy friend out.” Both Clive and Dan snorted.

“Yeah, yeah. ESOP. SYS.” Dan undocked her phone and slipped it into her pocket.

“ESOP SYS?” Richard asked.

“Employ standard operating procedure. See you soon.”

\---

Dan parked a little further down the road than a pale blue transport van. A logo for a household cleaning service was emblazoned on the side. Dan climbed out of her car and started walking towards the van.

 _This is literal spy shit_ , Richard thought. _This is so fucking intense._

Dan pressed her left palm flat on the surface of the door, just above the handle. She waited a moment for the hidden scanner to grant her access to the storage hold of the van. Myles looked up from the computer terminal and smiled.

“Is this my baby bird?” Myles asked as he looked Richard up and down. He handed over a simple bulletproof vest.

Dan nodded at Myles. “It is.” She took the bulletproof vest from Myles and helped Richard strap it on, making it sure it fight snuggly around his broad frame. “Remember the rule?” she asked Richard.

Richard nodded. “If someone says run, I run to the nearest SWAT team.” He also noticed how Dan’s demeanor had changed. She was now distant for him; she cold, calculating, and focused.

Dan nodded at Richard. “And don’t bother Falcon. Once we remove all the equipment, there will be space for you to sit on his other side.” As she spoke, Myles handed Dan her own bulletproof vest, which was equipped with all sorts of useful tools. Myles then started handing Dan all the weapons that were to be placed into her holsters.

Dan slid out the magazine on her SIG and then snapped it back into place when she saw that it was fully loaded with half-jacketed bullets. She reached up and tapped the side of her sunglasses to active them. “Go Hien, sync map display with glasses,” she said. The map that had been displayed in her car was now displayed on the inside lens of her glasses. There was now a purple dot on the map for Richard.

“Do you read me, Vortex?” Dan asked.

“Copy,” Vortex replied. He climbed out of his own car and started down the sidewalk. He had arrived a few minutes before Dan and Richard, so he was already outfitted for battle.

“Wait!” Richard didn’t get to finish his thought because Avery was already closing the back door of the van and joining Jason on the sidewalk towards the target’s house. Myles silently handed Richard a headset; Richard slipped it on and sat close to Myles, so that he could look over Myles’ shoulder.

“Go Hien, bring up full tactical display,” Myles said. Richard was amazed by all the information Hien, and therefore Myles, was tracking. And despite the massive amounts of information, it was all logically organized and easy to follow. Richard was very impressed by Falcon’s ability to absorb and process so much information without any complications.

 _I wonder if this is how Dan’s brain is organized._ Richard scratched his hair. _My brain probably looks like a bowl of spaghetti noodles._

“Unit GV19, lock and load,” Myles said once he fell into his concentration zone. _Mission is go._

\---

Vortex knocked on the front door. “Mr. Wilkinson!” he yelled out. “This is DARPA, under authority from the federal government, to investigate your claim of selling illegal military technology. Please open this door or we will take measures.”

Ghostrider and Vortex stood at the ready outside the front door, waiting the mandatory five minutes before they could barrel into the house with their guns blazing. Four minutes and forty-five seconds into the wait period, the door slowly creaked open. The face of Jeffrey Wilkinson peered out at them.

“Can I help you?” he asked. He swallowed a lump in his throat.

“We’re here is investigate you claim of selling illegal military technology. May we come in?” Vortex asked.

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about…” Despite his obvious unease, Jeffrey allowed Vortex and Ghostrider into the house.

“Do you mind if my partner takes a look around while we chat?” Vortex asked.

Jeffrey nodded slowly. “Uh… yeah.”

Vortex was leading into the living room. The young man sat on the couch and stared up at the scowling face of Vortex, who was completely calm. As Vortex went through what seemed routine questions, Ghostrider took a look around.

“Falcon! Are you seeing this?” she asked as she made a slow visual sweep of the home office. Her sunglasses relayed what she was seeing to a window on Falcon’s tactical display. The home office had been converted into a miniature mechanical engineering lab. Blueprints for all sorts of EMP technology were taped to the walls. There were parts of devices and tools strewn all over the table.

“Steady,” Falcon replied. _Don’t panic._

Ghostrider examined one of the blueprints. “There are real. Who’s been leaking information?” She grabbed a screwdriver from one of her many pockets and carefully took apart what looked like could be the G1 BHEMP of interest. As she removed components, she silently prayed for the device not to be laced with explosives.

“This doesn’t make sense. They have the correct blueprints, but this device is a dud.” Ghostrider looked around the room for anything that could possibly be the EMP device.

“It’s my buddy!” Jeffrey cried out when Vortex threatened to incarcerate him. Even though the EMP device was just a fake look-alike, Vortex didn’t let Jeffrey know that. Jeffrey covered his head with his arms, afraid that Vortex would hit him. “I dunno what he does in ‘is room. I know he’s inna gang and shit, but I swear it ain’t got nothing to do with me. I jus’ live ‘ere cuz I ain’t got nowhere else to go.”

“What’s your friend’s name?” Vortex asked.

“Dunno. Calls ‘imself Z.”

Vortex narrowed his eyes at the young man, daring him not to say anything else. Jeffrey opened his mouth to keep talking, but his was silenced by a bullet through his brain. Jeffrey slumped over on the couch and Vortex instantly knew that this mission was a set-up.

“Code sea foam. Withdraw, Ghostrider,” Vortex said over the comms. “Go Hien, project trajectory of sniper bullet.” He gave a rough approximation by moving his hand in the direction from Jeffrey’s body to the broken window.

“Sea foam?” Richard asked.

“Combination code blue and green. Target is down and package is missing,” Falcon supplied without looking away from his screens.

“One minute…” Ghostrider replied distractedly. She had pulled open all the drawers and knocked off all the items on the shelves. She slid her hands along the smooth surfaces, looking for hidden compartments or files. While examining the desk, she found a small slot and tried to pry it open with the screwdriver. A tiny compartment popped open and a thumb drive dropped out. Ghostrider pocketed the thumb drive and stood up.

“Located a thumb drive. Exiting now.”

Just as she turned towards the door, a man threw a punch square into her face. Ghostrider’s glasses cracked and Dan flinched in pain. The man then tackled her onto the desk. Ghostrider grunted as she felt her spine crack against the hard edge of the desk. His hands were around her neck and they struggled for a moment; Ghostrider managed to throw her knee into his gut and free herself.

“Someone else is here for the package. We have unfr-” Ghostrider was cut off as the comms went dead.

“FUCK!” Falcon shouted. More than half of his windows went blank as he lost all the information feeds from both Vortex and Ghostrider. Falcon slammed his hand down on the countertop.

“What happened?” Richard asked.

“The son of a bitch deployed the EMP.”

“What now?”

“Send in the Calvary.” Falcon flipped a few switches on one of the consoles, changing the comm frequency. “AC18420P. EMP was activated.”

“Copy that. Calvary moving in.”

“Go Hien, ping Alleycat STAT personal clean-up crew.” Falcon inhaled. “Fuck,” he hissed to himself as he exhaled.

Ghostrider was caught in a dizzy spell when the magnetization in the air changed. She stumbled and her opponent took advantage of her temporary disorientation. He charged Ghostrider and slammed her back into a wall. Reaching down, he grabbed the screwdriver Ghostrider had dropped and tried to stab her in the throat.

Ghostrider caught the man’s wrist with her hands and pushed him back. But he stronger than her and the screwdriver made its way closer to her throat. She leaned forward and bit the man in the hand. He screamed in pain and stabbed Ghostrider in the right shoulder at the base of her neck. He pulled the screwdriver out of Ghostrider’s shoulder to stab her again, but Vortex came thundering up the stairs and shot the man in the hand. Like Ghostrider, Vortex was using half-jacketed bullets. The man’s hand exploded into little bits of bone and flesh. Ghostrider shut her eyes and mouth tight to avoiding getting some of the pieces where they didn’t belong.

The man curled his hand against his chest and took off. Vortex froze for a moment, debating whether to chase after the man or to stay with Ghostrider. “Go, you idiot,” Ghostrider coughed out. Vortex nodded at his partner and took off running.

One of the SWAT officers found Ghostrider groaning on the floor. She had shoved a finger into the stab wound on her shoulder, trying to stop the bleeding. “Echo 7, Ghostrider needs medical attention **STAT**.” He lifted Ghostrider into his arms and carried her outside to the sidewalk. He gently laid her down and repeatedly told her that help was coming.

Ghostrider smiled at the SWAT officer. “I’m fine,” she croaked out. “I’m not going to die. Most of this blood isn’t mine.”

He laughed. “Even so, we don’t want one of our finest out of commission for longer than necessary.”

“Kind of you to say.”

As the mission’s tactical support, Falcon send a SWAT medic to Echo 7’s location. The medic removed Ghostrider’s hand from her wound and examined the damage. “Half inch stab wound to right shoulder,” he announced over the comm. “Depth unknown. Applying Quick clot.” He pulled out combat gauze that was doped with chemicals to hyper activate the clotting cascade; he applied it to the wound and the bleeding immediately stopped. “We need to do surgery.”

“Ambulance to Logan Heathers Hospital on standby. Coordinates 1.45 by 3.4,” Falcon replied over the comm.

Vortex shot the man who attacked Ghostrider in the knee and he fell to the ground. Even though the man had the lead, he was easy to track due to the blood trail he left behind. Vortex stood over him and shouted, “Who are you working for?”

The man shook his head. “I’m just hired muscle. They said they’d pay be $20,000 if I took out whomever came snooping.”

“Who hired you?”

“I don’t know. It was a phone call.”

“What did he sound like?”

“Male. Smooth. Deep. I don’t know!”

Vortex aimed his gun, ready to fire another bullet into the man’s hip, but a SWAT team appeared behind Vortex and took control of the situation. They cuffed the man and carried him away to a detention cell where Kevin McAllister would later pay him a visit.


	18. Aftermath

Richard was never particularly religious. He grew up in a Christian household and went to church every Sunday with his parents, but after he ran away from home to join the circus at 17, he had a quiet separation with Christianity. Yet as soon as he heard the words “Echo 7, Ghostrider needs medical attention **STAT** ,” Richard started praying. He imagined the stabbing to be something from a B-level horror film, with an insane amount of blood gushing out of Dan’s neck like a broken fire hydrant.

 _Dear God,_ he prayed, _I know we haven’t spoken for the better part of 30 years, but I’m praying to you now because you can’t let Dan die. Please don’t let her die. Not only because I think I love her -scratch that, I'm 99% sure I'm in love with her- but because she’s so important to everyone around her. Dan deserves to live to a ripe old age in relative peace and happiness, dispensing wisdom to the rest of us plebeians._

Richard felt silly, but there was nothing else that he could do. He clenched and unclenched hands in an attempt to keep his nervous energy and hysteria in check. In the few minutes between the comms going down and the Calvary arriving on the scene, Dan had been critically injured and it took Richard all of his will power not to start a blood bath.

 _Dear God,_ Richard prayed, _please give me the patience to endure this ordeal. I know that doing anything besides staying still can potentially compromise the mission. So please grant me the ability to be calm._

“You need a cigarette or something?” Myles asked, without peeling his eyes away from all the displays on his computer terminal. Myles felt the tension rolling off Richard in waves.

“I don’t smoke.”

“You’re hyper-antsy. I need you to stay calm.”

Richard wanted to roll his eyes and snap back, “Dan was fucking stabbed and you’re telling me to stay calm.” But Richard quickly realized that beneath Myles’ calm and focused exterior, he was probably terrified for Dan as well. “I’m trying my best,” Richard replied softly.

Myles didn’t answer right away, as his attention was back on coordinating the clean-up efforts. Richard heard Myles issue orders as to what needed to be saved or discarded. “She’ll be fine,” Myles finally said. “The injury isn’t that serious and Vortex is with her.” Myles chattered away into the comms for a few more moments and Richard didn't understand the majority of the military jargon. “You’ll see her in a few hours.”

The door to the back of the van opened. A man about the same age as Myles was standing there; he was carrying a bloody tactical vest and had a number of holsters slung over his shoulder. “Where should I put all this?” he asked.

“Uh…” Myles said, looking around the van. “Hollywood, get out for a minute.” As Richard moved to exit the van, Myles dumped all of Dan’s equipment in the seat Richard had just vacated. “Did she give you a thumb drive, Echo 7?” Myles asked. Echo 7 offered the thumb drive to Myles, but didn’t say anything. “Thanks,” Myles said as he accepted the drive and plugged it into his computer. “Do me a favor and babysit Hollywood for a few minutes?”

“Sure, I guess…” Echo 7 made a motion with his right hand for Richard to follow him and the two men took a seat on the sidewalk a few feet away from the van. Echo 7 pulled a pack of cigarettes from one of his vest’s pockets and offered one to Richard.

Richard politely refused.

Echo 7 shrugged and lit his cigarette. He took a long drag and let out a long breath before saying, “My wife hates that I smoke. I’ve been trying to quit, but there’s only so much blood I can see before I have to smoke.”

 _That’s right,_ Richard thought. _You’re the one who found Dan._ Richard wanted to ask him all sorts of questions about Dan when Echo 7 had found her, but he knew that now was not the appropriate time.

“And it’s always harder when it’s your friend that’s bleeding out.” Echo 7 shook his head. “Anyway, who are you and what are you doing here?”

Richard offered his hand. “Richard. I’m... Ghostrider’s tourist.” He had heard himself consistently referred to as "the tourist," so Richard felt it was an appropriate description.

Echo 7 shook Richard’s hand. “Like as in Richard Armitage?” he asked.

“Yeah…”

“Can I get you sign something for me? My wife loves you. Sometimes I think she loves you more than me.” Echo 7 chuckled and dug around in his pockets for a piece of paper and a pen. He ended up on settling for a black marker and his cigarette box. Richard signed the box, “All my love, Richard Armitage.”

“Thanks, dude,” Echo 7 said, admiring the signature. “She’s going to flip.”

The two men sat in silence and Echo 7 smoked.

“How do you know Ghostrider?” Richard asked, not able to stand the silence any longer. “Does she do this a lot?”

Echo 7 shook his head. “I used to work directly for Vortex. And by extension, I worked for Ghostrider.” Echo 7 took another long drag of his cigarette. “They were excellent bosses and I volunteer to work for them whenever the occasion presents itself.”

“What made them good bosses?” Richard asked.

“Besides the fact that they are incredibly intelligent and are always prepared?” Echo 7 chuckled. “To them, everyone is family. Even for a goon like me, who just does extraction work, they make me feel like I’m the most important member of the team.” Echo 7 smiled at Richard. “It’s not easy to do the whole trust thing in this business and I respect them immensely for it.”

"What is their business exactly?"

“What is their business exactly?”

“None of yours, if you don’t already know.” Echo 7 childishly stuck his tongue out at Richard, as if boasting that he possessed a secret knowledge the other did not.

Richard was about to respond, but Echo 7 held his hand up to his right ear in the universal sign of someone listening to the comms. Echo 7 stood up and stretched. “It looks like I’m needed again.” He took a final drag of his cigarette before tossing it to the ground and stamping it out. “Good luck, Richard. Learn as much as you can from Ghostrider.”

As Echo 7 jogged off, Richard rose to his feet and stood outside the van.

\---

Avery blinked a few times, letting her sluggish thoughts catch up with her surroundings. The bright overhead lights made her eyes hurt and her entire body felt like it was made out of lead. Her mouth was dry, as if it was made of cotton balls and was filled with sand.

 _Right,_ she thought. _I’m in the hospital, post right shoulder surgery._

“Vortex?” Avery mumbled.

Jason leaned forward into her direct line of sight. He had been sitting in a stiff chair next to the bed, holding one of her hands and texting Kevin with the other. Jason gave Avery’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Yes, Ghostrider?” he asked.

Avery struggled to form her next words, due to how dry her mouth was. Jason was quick to understand her predicament and held a cup to her lips. Avery greedily drank the cold water. Jason offered Avery a small smile and asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Have been better… Glad, you’re alive,” she replied slowly. “Falcon and Hollywood?” Even though she had been fully conscious when Echo 7 found her and when she was taken to the hospital, no one had updated her on the status of her team.

“Both alive and uninjured.”

“Oh good.”

Jason rubbed circles into Avery’s hand with his thumb. “Go back to sleep. I’ll fill you in when you wake back up.”

“Okay,” she mumbled as she closed her eyes and slipped back into sleep.

\---

“What do you mean I can’t see her?” Richard demanded. After three hours of festering in his own panic, Richard was now standing in the hospital’s parking lot with Myles and Jason. Jason had been relieved from babysitting duties when Kevin arrived 20 minutes before.

“I’m fucking standing outside the hospital and you won’t me go in?” Richard yelled, throwing his hands in the air in exasperation. “What the fuck is wrong with you two?”

Jason and Myles were not intimidated by Richard’s anger. Jason glared at Richard, trying his best not to punch the man straight in the nose and send him into the hospital for a different reason. Jason was considered as the more patient one between him and Dan, but that still didn’t make him very patient. Myles frowned a Richard, giving him a sympathetic expression.

Richard ranted and raved for a few more minutes. But when he realized that no matter what tactic he tried Jason and Myles would remain unsympathetic to his pleas, he gave up. Deflated, Richard slumped his shoulders and stared at his feet. The three men stood in silence for a few minutes.

Myles glanced at his watch. “What’s Avery’s favorite smoothie flavor?” he asked.

“Toss-up between passion fruit and mixed berries.” Jason shrugged and pulled his hands from his pockets. “We probably should get one of each.” He walked over to his navy blue Tesla Model S, then climbed into the driver’s seat.

Myles pulled open the passenger side door and made a gesture with his hand at Richard. “Get in. We’re getting food because Avery will be starving when they release her.”

“Is she even allowed to eat this soon after surgery?’

Myles shrugged. “It’s not going to stop her.

“And if I don’t go with you?” Richard asked.

“They’re still not going to let you in,” Myles replied.

\---

“Put the flamethrower away,” Kevin pre-emptively said as he walked into the hospital room. Avery was reclining on the bed, looking paler than usual. Her right shoulder was heavily bandaged and her right arm was in a sling. Avery hadn't gotten much of a chance to talk with Jason because the minute she fully came around, she was constantly attended to by nurses.

“Fuck off, Alleycat,” she spat out.

Kevin dropped a duffel bag at the foot of the bed. “I brought you some civvies; they were the ones in your locker.” Kevin stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, his hands shoved into his pockets. “The man who stabbed you is being held at one of our sites and we’ll chat with him as soon as you get discharged. In case you were wondering, he’ll be going to prison for at least 30 years for aggregated assault of a federal enforcement officer and for drug dealing.”

“He was wearing a personal magnetization collar; the same one I developed to prevent dizzy spells when the crude G1 BHEMP were deployed.” Avery massaged her temple with her working hand. “How did he get one?”

“When asked, he said it was left for him.”

“By Z.”

“It would seem so.”

“I’m going to hazard a guess that Z is Zeus?”

“Circumstantial, but balance of probability is yes.”

“This assignment was a set-up.”

“So it would seem.”

“Jester wants us to know what he’s capable of. He had access to old, disbanded DARPA equipment.” Avery bit on the tip of her left index finger. “Who at HQ provided intel? I want to chat with him or her.”

“One step ahead of you; he’s detained and waiting for Unit GV19’s arrival.”

“Excellent.” Avery sat up and swung her legs off the side of the bed. “And why didn’t the hired muscle shoot me?” Avery asked. “Just kill me outright? He said his mission was to… ‘take out whomever came snooping’ I think were his words.”

Kevin shrugged. “You can ask him that when you see him. But he didn’t have a gun when we apprehended him.” Kevin turned his gaze away from Avery and out the window. It was still sunny despite it being later in the afternoon. “Anyway, the doctors say you’re lucky that you weren’t stabbed in any major arteries or nerves; the surgery was mostly for putting all the muscle back together. You should start physical therapy in four to five days.”

“Did Falcon break the thumb drive?”

“Says we need IGOR for that.”

“What happened to the kid? Jeffrey?”

“Bullet in the brain.”

“Queenie must have been monitoring long-range; she’s the sharp-shooter between the two.”

“Vortex had Hien plot the trajectory and Falcon had a SWAT team check it out. As we expected, they left no evidence. Their nest was in some unsuspecting American’s house.”

Avery nodded. “How soon do I get out of here?”

“As soon as you get changed.”

\---

Richard had acted in enough spy films and television to know that they were at a safe house. While the CIA were holding the interrogation and debriefing inside, Richard had been exiled to the dismal backyard like a misbehaving puppy. The weather was pleasant, but Richard felt uncomfortable because he wanted to be given the full picture instead of grasping at the fringes.

 _But it’s not my business,_ Richard scolded himself. _Kind of like what Clive said, when my internship is done I put all of this down and walk away. This is their lives; they can’t put this down and walk away. Because I can walk away, the less I know the better._

Richard jumped to his feet the minute the back door opened. He closely examined Dan as she stepped out from the door. It was the first time he had seen her since that morning before the mission started; Jason and Myles had gone straight from the smoothie dispensary to this location. Dan looked terrible, still a little pale, and had a bruise forming under her left eye.

 _How many other bruises does she have that I can’t see?_ Richard wondered. He didn’t know where the outfit she was wearing came from, which was the same exact one she was wearing when she left on her previous trip. Richard fought down the urge to pull her into his arms and tell her that everything would be okay.  _As if that would actually solve any of her problems_ , he thought bitterly at his uselessness.

Dan was still adjusting to the fact that she couldn’t use her right arm because she initially reached out to Richard with her right hand, and then switched to her left.

“Is my job exciting enough for you now?” she asked as she placed her hand on Richard’s shoulder. Richard noticed that she was using the same frustrated tone as on the day of their first meeting, when she had returned from her “personal business” meeting.

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t get stabbed in the process,” Richard replied. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear to get a better look at the bruise on her face.

Dan shrugged. “Occupational hazard.” She gave Richard a pat and asked, “Ready to go home?”

Jason dropped Dan and Richard off at Dan’s car.

“Are you cleared to drive?” Richard asked when Dan climbed into the driver’s seat of the McLaren.

“That’s why you’re driving,” she replied. “I just have to start it for you.”

“Right.” Richard remembered how the steering wheel scanned her palm print before allowing the ignition to catch.

“Hien can also drive, so you basically need to do nothing except sit in the seat.”

Richard climbed into the driver’s seat and adjusted all the controls. “And pass up my only opportunity to drive a beauty like this? No fucking way.”

“Go Hien, activate new driver assist,” Dan said when she settled into the passenger’s seat. “Route course to DARPA campus.”

"Ready when you are," Hien replied.

\---

Dan waited until Richard was smoothly driving down the empty highway before she leaned her seat back and closed her eyes. She wasn’t tired, but she didn’t want to be distracted she he reflected on the mission and its implications. There was one major question that the CIA hadn’t been able to answer.

 _Who else is working with Jester?_ Dan mused. She ran through a mental list of all the people Jester was closely associated with when she was working the undercover operation in Palestine; they had all been accounted for when the operation was re-opened. _Even if some lowlife in HQ leaked the blueprints, Jester would need a partner to interpret those designs. Both Zeus and Queenie are not engineers and wouldn’t know what to do with the blueprints. There are only a handful of scientists and engineers in the world who could build EMP devices based on our designs… And they’re all accounted for._

As Dan worked through her thoughts, she subconsciously curled her right hand protectively against her chest and tapped the fingers of her left hand against her thighs. Richard’s eyes flicked a few times from the road to the syncopated movements of Dan’s fingers. He debated if he wanted to reach across the median and take Dan’s hand in his.

 _Fuck it_ , Richard thought. _I may have to put this down when my time expires, but I’m going to hold onto what I can for as long as I can._

Richard gently slipped his hand over Dan’s, loosely lacing their fingers together. Dan, surprised, opened her eyes and looked up at him. Richard simply offered a comforting smile in return. _Because you looked like you needed it_ , was what his expression said. Dan gave him a small nod, closed her eyes again to return to her thoughts, and enjoyed the comfort Richard provided.


	19. Wearing Down and Out

It was 00:20 when they arrived back in Arlington; the trip home was significantly shorter due to the lack of traffic and therefore the ability to drive at speeds much faster than the posted limit.

“You can’t take the McLaren with you, unfortunately,” Dan said as they pulled up to the DARPA campus. “But you can take the SUV back to your place if you don’t want to catch a cab.”

“What about you?” Richard asked. He parked the car and turned towards Dan, not moving to get out of the car. “How will you get home?” _As far as I’m aware, all your vehicles are manual transmission and you can’t drive with one arm in a sling._

“I wasn’t planning on going home. Give me a few more hours and I’ll be right back here, anyway.” When Richard opened his mouth to protest, Dan gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “You’re exhausted even though you didn’t do much today. I can tell my work has affected you. Go home, get some rest, and I’ll still be here when you come back.”

Richard looked away, bit his lower lip, and then looked back at Dan. “What if I don’t want to go?” he asked softly.

Dan offered Richard a gentle smile, understanding the deeper implications of why Richard wanted to stay the night with her. She wasn’t quite sure if she was ready for that kind of emotional commitment, but since they were headed on that trajectory, she squashed her concerns. She decided that because she already had let Richard in this far, she would continue with it; then over the next few days she would put some distance back between them.

“If you insist,” she replied, “there’s a couch in my office. DARPA has a locker room and showers. But you’ll end up smelling like me and have to borrow some of Clive’s clothes.”

“That’s fine. I like the way you smell.” _Lavender and lilacs. A very feminine, gentle scent for a woman who is anything but those things._

The pair exited the car and Dan showed Richard where the employee locker rooms were. While Richard showered, Dan called Jason to discuss the interrogation he would be conducting of the CIA employee who had provided the intelligence for the mission they just went on. Dan had no doubts about Jason’s ability, but she had formulated some questions of her own that she wanted to make sure she had answers to.

“What are we doing tomorrow?” Richard asked as he walked into her office. Dan had already ended the call and was checking the messages Clive had left her throughout the day about their various projects.

“We’re going to MJ’s birthday party.” Dan stifled a giggle, remembering MJ’s question about Dan’s new boyfriend.

“All day?”

Dan shook her head. “I’m going to stay here and work. You have combat training with Sam and Jason.”

Richard groaned. Dan was right when she said that he was exhausted. “You’re joking right?”

“I thought you had scheduled training every Tuesday? Tomorrow is Tuesday.” From the smirk Dan had on her lips, Richard could tell that she was getting a small amount of satisfaction out of his misery. “And you’ll have training for the next few days, to give me time to heal and to make up for the session you’ll miss when we’re shipped.”

Dan shrugged and turned off all the lights except the one at her desk. “So if I were you, I’d hunker down and go to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be punishing.”

Richard laid down the couch, which was surprisingly more comfortable than he thought it would be. But he couldn’t sleep. He settled for staring at Dan’s back, watching her maneuver with one arm as she went about her usual DARPA duties.

\---

Richard woke up dazed, confused, and with one word on his mind: blood. He had a dream about being Echo 7, about finding Dan bleeding out all over the floor. About not being able to save her despite her cries for help. All the fears Richard experience in the day were doubly intensified in the night. He suddenly found himself over the sink in Dan’s office, dry heaving.

All the lights were still off, except for the lamp on the desk, but the lamp head was turned away so it was more like a soft glow along the wall. Once got himself under control and splashed water on his face, Richard took a glance at his watch; it was 05:30.

He wondered, _Did she even sleep last night? Does she ever sleep?_ Richard remembered the joke Dan had made about her not sleeping because she was a ghost. _Where is she?_ Richard had a sudden overwhelming need to find Dan and make sure she was still alive.

Richard found Dan in the warehouse, typing with one hand. He cleared his throat. Dan looked up from her computer screens. “If you’re just doing computer work, why did you leave?” Richard asked.

“I needed some air,” she replied. “Sometimes it helps me think. Besides… you snore.”

“What are you thinking about?”

She stood up and placed her left hand on his shoulder. “Go back to sleep; you still have a few hours before you have to start the day.”

Richard awkwardly shuffled his feet. “I had a terrifying nightmare,” he admitted in a low whisper. “Do you mind sitting with me? Until I fall back asleep?”

Dan’s expression didn’t change, but Richard could see the sympathy in her eyes. _Is that why she doesn’t sleep? Because she has her own nightmares?_

Dan gently squeezed Richard’s shoulder and made a small motion with her head for Richard to follow her. “Sure.”

\---

The second time Richard woke up was much calmer. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked around the office. On the counter was a fresh mug of tea and some muffins. Richard threw water on his face, helped himself to some food, and then walked to the testing warehouse.

Richard was greeted by the sound of Clive and Dan laughing. Dan was sitting in Clive’s chair and Clive was standing behind her, braiding her hair. _He’s surprisingly calm about it all,_ Richard thought. _But how else is he supposed to react? Getting angry won’t help Dan._

“What are you going to tell MJ?” Clive asked.

“That Auntie A got in a fight.” Dan looked up from her lap at Richard when she heard the warehouse door close behind him. “Good morning, Hollywood.”

Clive paused and he leaned over to make eye contact with Dan; he asked her a question with a raised eyebrow. Dan shook her head slightly.

“Fair enough,” Clive said as he continued to braid Dan’s hair. “But you can’t go around getting stabbed. By knives, screwdrivers, or otherwise.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll ask him to break my kneecaps as an alternative.”

“Next time, just put your Dick in it.”

Dan’s head spun around so fast that Richard thought she was going to suffer whiplash. Her hair flew out of Clive’s hand and Clive sighed that he would have to restart the braid. “What?” Dan said.

Clive placed his hands on both sides of Dan’s head to turn her head face-forward again. He deftly undid his work and started again. “You know… you’re masculine enough to have your own penis. But you have Richard…”

Dan rolled her eyes even though Clive couldn’t see her do so. “That is being listed as one of the worst joke you’ve ever made, Winters.”

“I will admit it was a lot funnier in my head.”

Dan made a noise like she was being mentally electrocuted. “Seriously, Winters. Why would I want to harm my Dick?”

Clive burst out into laughter. “So you can get a new one?”

“But what if I like the one I already have?”

“Good for you.”

Richard sighed, knowing that he would never understand Dan’s and Clive’s non-funny sense of humor. The words “They’re of a rather peculiar sort, but they’re still people,” came back to his mind.

“So… I’ll see you two later?” Richard asked. He had to be heading out soon otherwise he would be late for training. He wanted to stick around and spend more time with Dan, but he didn’t know how to inject himself into Dan’s and Clive’s weird conversation.

Dan nodded slightly. “Jason will give you directions after training.”

“Should I bring a gift?”

“Just be prepared to play lots of games. MJ is turning six, but she’s a crafty vixen and loves male attention,” Clive responded.

“I’ve got you covered,” Dan added. “Have fun at training.”

\---

“Easy business today,” Jason said. “You’re going to work out with me for a few hours, then you’re over to Sam for a few hours, then you’re back with me for yoga.”

Richard nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

The two men exercised in silence for the first two hours. Richard followed Jason’s lead; Jason would make gestures with his left hand, indicating when they were going to switch to a different exercise.

“So…” Richard started, “Did you ever find out what was on the thumb drive?” From the few days they’d spent together, Richard knew that Jason wasn’t particularly fond of him. Jason was professionally amicable, but nothing more. But Richard still wanted there to be some kind of conversation between them because he found the silence unsettling.

Jason set down the weight bar he was using to squat. He peered down at Richard, his arms folded over his chest. “What do you know about it?”

“Echo 7 gave a bloody, literally, thumb drive to Falcon yesterday.”

“What does it matter to you?”

“It must be important, if Dan was stabbed over it. Did it have more advanced EMP designs on it?” Jason refused to answer Richard’s question. “I’m sorry,” Richard quickly added when he noticed Jason’s frozen demeanor. “I just wanted to have a conversation. But you don’t exactly strike me as the kind of guy to talk about anything except his work.”

Richard chuckled at himself. “Which I just realized, you can’t talk about your work. And that I shouldn’t even be thinking about it.”

Jason responded by turning sharply on his heel and walking away. Jason made a motion with his hand at Sam, who came trotting over to Richard.

“What have you done to Jason?” Sam asked. “He looks pissed off.”

“I’m not sure,” Richard lied. “He’s just always brooding?”

Sam shrugged. “It’s my first time working with him; he’s a lot more serious than most of the people I work with, but that doesn’t make him a bad person. Anyway, ready to learn some really cool stunt sequences?”

The stunt sequences involved a lot of forward rolls and pivots on the knees. Even though he looked like a truly deadly professional, all his joints ached from the effort. Richard bit his tongue, keeping the storm of profanity to himself. He focused on memorizing the movements.

Forward roll. Pull up onto one knee, fire three shots, pivot left, fire three more shots. Spring to feet. Run, hand-to-hand combat, fall onto back, roll on side, pull up onto one knee, fire three shots.

By the time Richard finished his training with Sam, all he wanted to do was curl on his side on the mats and sleep. Thankfully, Jason took pity on the older man and set him home an hour early.

\---

“Sorry I’m late,” Dan announced loudly as she let herself into the house. “I had to catch a cab from home because,” she awkwardly wiggled her right arm, “can’t really drive manual with one arm.”

Clive took the large, wrapped package from Dan and set it on the dining room table. “MJ hasn’t noticed. I think she’s in love with Myles.”

Dan followed Clive into the kitchen. A wide grin instantly appeared on her face when she saw Myles sitting cross-legged on the floor with MJ on his lap, who was telling him all sorts of ridiculous stories about her life thus far and half-watching TV. Myles, in turn, made the appropriate over-exaggerated noises and facial expressions.

Jason came over to the island counter, where Clive and Dan had settled. He thrust a drink into Dan’s hand. From the color, Dan knew it was her favorite drink: half lemonade and half iced tea. “I’m worried Falcon might turn,” he joked with Dan.

“We can get him replaced.” Dan took a sip of her drink and scanned the room. “What happened to Hollywood?”

“Phone call; out back.”

Dan nodded. “Should we rescue Falcon?”

Jason shouted over to MJ, “Am I still your favorite uncle?” He ran over and snatched MJ from Myles’ lap and planted big kisses all over her face. MJ squealed, giggled, and wrapped her arms around Jason’s neck.

“Yes, of course!” she said.

“Do you want to see what Auntie A brought you?”

“Auntie A is here?” she shouted excitedly. She had been so absorbed with Myles that she didn’t notice Dan arriving in the kitchen. “YES!”

Dan waved at MJ as she passed, Jason still carrying MJ to the dining table in the next room. Myles slowly rose to his feet, stretched his legs, and gave Dan an appreciative smile. “Thanks for the save,” he said.

Clive slapped Myles on the shoulder. “I wasn’t lying.”

Myles shook his head and chuckled. “Indeed, you weren’t. But she’s adorable.”

“HURRY UP!” they heard MJ shout from the other room.

Dan, Myles, and Clive laughed and made their way to the dining table. MJ was sitting in the head seat, with the box Dan had brought on the table in front of her. As soon as all the adults were positioned in a semi-circle around her, MJ ripped the package open with gusto.

MJ burst into tears with excitement when she saw that it was a custom-made pink and blue princess dress based on a drawing she did for Dan a few months ago. She screeched with delight, not having the words to describe how she was feeling.

Jason placed a much smaller box in front of MJ. “This is from all of your uncles.” Technically it was just from Jason, but he didn’t want MJ thinking that both Myles and Richard had forgotten about her.

With the same level of enthusiasm, MJ torn open the box. Her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. It was a silver tiara with crystal flower adornments, and it had a matching necklace and bracelet. MJ stared open-mouthed at Jason and Myles.

Clive gently nudged his daughter. “What do you say to your aunt and uncles?”

“Thank you!” MJ replied. She turned her attention at Dan. “Can I put the dress on?”

“Of course,” Dan replied. Dan pulled back the chair for the little girl to slip out and MJ dragged Dan away to help her get dressed.

Clive rolled his eyes at the retreating females. “You and Dan are spoiling my child.”

“Someone has to.” Jason shrugged. “Besides, who else am I going to spoil? You?”

“Not that I would complain.”

\---

As soon as Dan settled the tiara on MJ’s head, she dashed away to show her father, Myles, and Jason. Dan brought a hand to her mouth to cover her laugh.

When she regained her composure, she noticed Richard lingering in the now open doorway. Unlike the last time Richard had seen Dan in civilian clothes, Richard said exactly what was on his mind. “You look stunning.”

Dan held out her left hand and Richard pulled her to her feet. She gave Richard a small twirl; Dan was wearing tight fitting jeans and pastel-colored flower print top. It was nothing fancy, but the fine tailoring worked magic on the outfit. “Are you going to react like this every time I wear civvies?” she asked. “But thank you.”

“I always catches me off-guard. I sometimes forget you’re not all business.” _I forget that you have maternal instincts._

“Fair enough.” Dan didn’t want to rejoin the others quite yet, so she asked, “How was your phone call?”

Richard shrugged. “They want to have a few over-the-phone meetings over the next few days. Nothing serious.”

Dan didn’t have anything insightful to reply with, so she lingered for a moment and then headed back towards the kitchen.

After dinner, Jason and Dan sat on the couch next to each other. Myles was back on the floor with MJ in his lap. Jason had his arm resting along the back of the couch, but he wasn’t holding Dan around the shoulders. They spoke to each other in their secret code and laughed at things Richard didn’t understand.

Richard paused in drying the dishes and wondered what she must be feeling when she’s alone. _To have had your life up-ended. To have missed your chance to have a daughter with a man you loved. This is the life she should have had._ Then his thoughts took a turn to: _I want to be the one to give her this life. I want her to be the mother of my children._

Clive noticed Richard’s pause. “They make a good family portrait, don’t they?” he asked. “Even as new as Myles is, he fits right in with them. Like the son they’ll never have.”

Richard didn’t reply, not trusting himself to say something that would get him into trouble.

“I really like Myles and hope that he sticks around. He has such a profound fondness and respect for Dan that it makes me happy. He understands Dan’s life because they’re in the same line of work, but there’s none of the baggage Dan has with Jason.”

Richard was finally able to put into words a strange feeling he had about Jason and Dan. They had severely split personalities. It was like a switch that would flip. One side was the all-professional, killing machine. The other side was what he was witnessing, the cozy and loving family. Richard imagined that there used to be a spectrum that Dan and Jason would inhabit, but after what happened in Palestine, a massive rift had formed and they could only be one personality or the other.

Myles was yet to develop his split personality, but it that was only because he had just joined the service.

“What’s wrong?” Clive asked. “Your face looks like you’ve just had an unpleasant revelation.”

Richard snapped out of his thoughts. “I put some words to feelings. That’s all.” He quickly finished his task and excused himself to the toilet. He laughed at himself. _For someone whose job it is to understand people and guide others to that same understanding, I’m terrible at understanding these people._

\---

After a small argument, Jason begrudgingly relinquished the task of giving Dan a ride home to Richard. Richard wasn’t surprised when he pulled up to what could be considered the most non-descript, plain building in the city. It fit Dan’s need to blend in and remain anonymous, to not draw any attention to herself.

“Will I see you at all over the next few days?” Richard asked as they walked to Dan’s doorstep. Dan thought it was ridiculous that Richard wanted to walk the ten feet with her, but he insisted.

Dan shook her head. “Any interest in learning physics with calculus on top of combat training?” Richard grimaced and Dan laughed. “Then no, probably not.” She rose onto her toes and gave Richard a quick peck on the cheek. “Thanks for the ride.”

Richard was too stunned to say anything right away. He managed a mumbled, “It’s your car.”

Dan gave Richard a final smile and let herself inside the building.


	20. To Sea

For the following three days of combat training, Richard burned with a hatred that he had never known before in his life. Richard threw weights around the gym and yelled at Jason. Jason wouldn’t respond to Richard’s anger, remaining stoic and simply lifting an eyebrow to convey disappointment whenever Richard lashed out. Jason’s closed-off attitude only fueled Richard’s anger, as Richard interpreted Jason’s demeanor as contemptuous.

 _I want to fucking smash his head in_ , Richard thought furiously as Jason had them run and extra two miles. _All I want is for the two of us to get along, for Dan’s sake, and he’s making it so fucking difficult._ Richard smiled inwardly. _Killing this fucking bastard might solve a lot of my problems, too._

What Richard didn’t realize was the favor Jason was doing him, having Richard channel all of this thoughts on aggression towards him. By the end of the day, Richard was always too exhausted to do anything except collapse into bed and sleep without dreams. There wasn’t much time for Richard to dwell on the chaos Dr. Avery Nguyen had inadvertently caused in his life.

But Jason’s motives weren’t entirely altruistic. As much as Jason constantly reminded himself that Avery needed Richard to do a job he couldn’t, Jason still felt overwhelming jealousy. Every time he saw Richard’s beatific expression when he was around Avery, Jason vomited a little in his throat. With Richard so thoroughly hating him, Jason felt a little justified in his own hatred towards Richard.

On the fourth day of combat training, Jason’s patience snapped. During a sparring exercise, Jason landed a firm punch on Richard’s left jaw, knocking the larger man to the ground.

"What the fuck?" Richard shouted at Jason as he slowly rose to his feet.

"Pay attention."

"You could've pulled your punch."

"I'm here to train you to defend yourself."

"And you still could've pulled your punch." Richard narrowed his eyes, the blue taking a steely edge. "Fucking wanker."

Richard was not ready for the open-handed slap that landed on his right cheek and left a throbbing outline of a hand. "You don't talk to me like that,” Jason hissed. "You are a liability to Avery. If she continues to insist on taking you with her wherever she goes, you have to know how to defend yourself." And to prove his point, Jason kicked Richard with just enough force on the inside of Richard’s left knee, causing Richard to drop into a groaning heap on the gym’s mats.

“I fucking hate you,” Richard said in between groans. He was in too much pain to ascertain the true meaning behind Jason’s words.

“Fucking hate me all you want, Armitage. It’s not going to protect you. It’s not going to protect Avery.” Jason opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it and snapped his mouth closed. He turned on his heel and stalked away.

It wouldn’t be for another hour that Sam came to run through stunt directions, so Richard rolled on his side and fumed at Jason. As the pain ebbed away, realization hit Richard harder than Jason had ever hit him. _Jason literally has to watch the woman he loves fall in love with another man. It's a fate worse than death._

"I'm sorry," Richard whispered to Jason, as if Jason could hear the apology. Richard wasn’t sorry for being the source of Jason's misery, but for not being sympathetic to that misery. All the hatred Richard had pent up inside of him evaporated and he felt very hollow.

With that realization came a second realization: Richard owed it to everyone who cared about Dan, particularly Jason and Clive, to love Dan with everything he had. Richard didn’t know how exactly he was supposed to do that, but he knew that he had to do it. Something also told Richard that it wasn’t going to be easy, but now that he had made his decision, Richard felt that he could do it.

\---

“When was the last time you saw your therapist?” Connie asked as she removed the last staple from Avery’s shoulder. As she waited for Avery to think of the answer, Connie set down her equipment on the shiny, metal tray table and peeled off her nitrile gloves. Connie gently palpated the scar tissue around the surgical site and checked for any unusual bruising.

“Ten months, give or take. I thought I was doing well.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t. I was only going to suggest you have a touch-up.” Connie manipulated Avery’s right shoulder in a forward rolling motion and Avery winced in pain. “Does it also hurt when I do this?” Connie asked as she rotated Avery’s outstretched arm from the pronated positon to a supine position.

Avery shook her head. “Lifting my arm doesn’t really hurt either. “Only when you push my shoulder to internally rotate.”

Connie nodded and released Avery’s arm. She scribbled some notes down in Avery’s medical records. “Anyway, you should go before you ship out.” _Even the strongest among us need help sometimes. It’s nothing to embarrassed about doing._

Avery massaged the right-side base of her neck, both to relieve the stiffness and soreness in her shoulder and out of habit when confronted with unpleasant memories. “I’ll try to go today or tomorrow.”

"You can also pick up Richard's uniform on your way out."

"Thanks, Connie."

Connie placed a hand on Avery's thigh, right above the knee, and gave her a squeeze. "That's what I'm here for."

Avery pushed herself off the examination table and headed to the CIA quartermaster’s department in the adjacent building. As she briskly walked, Avery realized how much work she was able to get down in the three days she was away from Richard. She hadn’t realized how much effort it took to have a monitor and train a tourist; with nothing to distract her, Avery was able to decrypt the thumb drive, plan her next mission for Operation Jester, get all of the shipping affairs in order, and make progress on her regular DAPRA projects.

After picking up the uniform Richard would wear while they were working on the battleship, Avery called her therapist and asked if they could meet for a few hours. As she talked, she fingered the new patches sewn into the uniform, the colors still bright and shining.

“Perfect, I’ll see you in ten minutes.”

When Avery had first returned from Palestine, she had fought against Connie's advice about seeing a therapist for her PTSD. Avery argued that she had only been in captivity for a few months and that she didn't experience anything too severe. Avery had argued, “Colleagues have survived worse and didn’t have to go.” But as her temper worsened over the following weeks, with her lashing out at everyone and everything, Avery knew that she was only deceiving herself about needing help.

Therapy was a long, slow, and painful process made harder by Avery’s inability to trust. However, over the months, Avery learned to share her most private thoughts and her therapist learned not to give unsolicited advice. Avery managed to get some semblance of her life put back together and the sessions went from being weekly to biweekly to monthly to as needed.

Avery settled into regular spot in the office, an antique empire chair with red-striped upholstery opposite the door. Her therapist sat in his regular spot, in his modern-style office chair behind his desk. The two sat in silence for a few minutes, then Avery started to talk, the words spurting out of her mouth like fire hydrant.

Avery talked about everything from being re-instated on Operation Jester to the nightmares they gave her to her outburst at Richard on his second day to things she didn’t understand about the last two missions. To Clive and daughter. To the quagmire of feelings she had for both Jason and Richard and to what she thought they were thinking.

Once the words stopped, Avery’s therapist observed Avery for a few minutes. He made a note in her file that Avery displayed her usual nervous ticks at their usual intensity, which was to be expected. Avery then stood up, shook her therapist’s hand, and departed.

\---

There was a gentle knock on Avery’s office door. As she spun in her chair, Clive shouted, “Heads up, fucker!” and tossed Avery’s mobile phone at her from the doorway. Avery fumbled in the air with her right hand; the phone dropped into her lap.

“Thanks, dip shit.” Avery glanced down at the display: three missed calls from Vauxhall EH.

“How is old man Bonesaw?” Clive asked.

“I’m going to find out.”

“Tell him I said hello. I know you kept in touch with him, but it’s been quite a long time for me.” He drummed his fingers on the door frame. “I’m finalizing specs right now and will get them to you soon. And MJ is working on her thank you card. She also won’t take the dress off and keeps talking about Myles.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes simultaneously.

“Enjoy her innocence while you can. Before we know it, Jason and I will be busting the asses of her boyfriends.”

Clive chuckled and gave Avery a casual, two-fingered salute before pushing off his post and walking away. Although Avery was right, he wasn’t ready to think about his daughter as hormonal teenager. He just hoped that MJ would follow Avery’s lead to be strong and to choose to surround herself with people who adored her.

Avery dialed Eric’s number and said, “Hello, love. Sorry I missed you,” as soon as he answered.

Eric chuckled on the other end. “That’s alright, darling. It’s been rainy all morning, so I’ve been stuck with paperwork.” Avery heard Eric take a sip of his tea. “When is the soonest you can come to London?”

“What did you find, Bonesaw?”

“I don’t fully understand it myself. I have a feeling you’re not going to like it when you see it.”

“Hmm…” Avery chewed the inside of her lip. “I’m shipping out tomorrow for four days. Flying or nesting next week?” _Will you be in London next week or do you have another mission abroad?_

“Nesting. Fixing plumping.” _I’ll be in London. There seems to be a double agent in MI-6._

“Odd. We had a leak, too. Minor.” _We just caught a double agent, recently, but it was low level._

“More circumstantial evidence that our work might indeed related.”

“Oh,” Avery added, suddenly remembering something she had been meaning to ask Eric for a while, but had forgotten about due to everything else on her mind. “Does the phrase ‘dancing pumpkins’ mean anything to you?”

“No.” He paused again to take another sip of his tea. “Where’d you pick that up?”

“Falcon picked it up while intercepting a transmission between the Syrians and Jordanians.”

“Some of my intel has to do with the Syrians.”

“Sounds like we’ve got a CFEP.”

“A what? You have to help me out with that Americanism.”

“Cluster fuck of epic proportions.”

Eric laughed hard. “Excellent. Anyway, reunion T5. Head’s up before heading out.”  _See you in five days. Let me know when you leave for London._

“Winters also sends his regards.”

Avery could hear Eric smile. “Tell the bastard not to be a stranger.”

“Sure thing.”

“Those were the golden days, you know?” Eric asked.

There was a pause in the conversation as Avery and Eric reflected on the years that they had spent together: Dan, Eric, Jason, and Clive traveling the Asian circuit with their research. Back when Avery was still working on her PhD and before Jester became a threat. “Yeah, they were,” Avery replied softly. She took a deep breath and added in a firm voice, “TCOY, Bonesaw.”

“LYT, Ghostrider.”

\---

“Dan?” Richard asked incredulously. After four entire days of radio silence from the woman, he couldn’t fathom an idea that would explain why she was standing at his door at 04:30. After a night of tossing and turning, Richard wasn’t sure he if was hallucinating Dan coming to visit him.

“The one the only,” she replied with a large grin. “Good to see you, too.” She tossed a standard-issue olive green Navy duffle bag at Richard, which he caught with both hands. Dan leaned against the door frame instead of letting herself in. “Pack light for four days. Don’t bring anything valuable.”

“Uh… okay,” Richard replied. His mind swirled with a thousand and one questions, but he determined that it wasn’t the right time to be asking those questions. He turned his back on Dan and hastily started to unceremoniously shove his basic necessities into the bag. “Where are we going?”

“Tell you on the way.”

Once Richard finished packing, he asked, “Do I have time for a quick shower?”

Dan nodded and handed him his uniform. “Put this on.” Richard unrolled the bundle and noticed that it was a dark blue jumpsuit exactly like the one Dan was wearing. “And shave while you’re at it.”

Richard disappeared into the bathroom for twenty five minutes. When he emerged, looking more awake and presentable, Richard found Dan still standing in the doorway. “You could have taken a seat while waiting.”

She shrugged, but didn’t say anything.

Richard sat down on the couch to pull on his boots. He tucked the ends of jumpsuit into his boots and tied the laces tight, mirroring Dan’s look. “I think I’m good to go.”

“Let’s get to it.” She pushed off from the wall and briskly walked down the hallway.

Richard clocked the phrase as something Jason would say. Before he could stop the words, Richard asked, “Is Jason coming with us? Myles?”

“He’s meeting us there. Myles isn’t involved on the project.”

The two didn’t speak again until they were halfway to the DARPA campus. Without preamble, Avery said, “The US Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division – shortened to NSWCDD – houses and tests the only active railgun on a  _Zumwalt-_ class destroyer in the South Pacific. _Zumwalt-_ class destroyers are guided missile destroyers that are also stealth ships that can execute land attacks. Besides being a personal favorite of mine and Jason’s, this type of ship was chosen to carry the railgun because it’s capable of generating the requisite power for firing the railgun without being crippled…”

Even though Dan spoke slowly and paused frequently in the way she did when explaining physics to him, Richard was still confused.

“Anyway,” Dan said after clearing her throat, “Clive and I have been working on upgrades, which we will be installing and testing. I got clearance for you to ship out with me a while back because I knew I would be going; I just didn’t have the specific dates of when we’d actually be going. Hence the short notice.”

Dan parked the SUV in her usual spot and climbed out, but headed in the opposite direction of the EMWRD warehouse.

“Where are we going?” Richard asked.

“Airfield,” Dan replied over her shoulder.

She kept walking at her brisk pace until they reached the DARPA airfield. Richard scanned the area, noticing that there were no aircraft of any kind in the area. There were no lights on the ground, the only light coming from the distant security lights on the buildings. Before he could ask his question, Dan pointed into the dark sky at a pair of blinking red lights that was rapidly approaching them. If he strained his ears, he could make out the faint whirling of blades.

“You’ve ridden in a helicopter before, right, Hollywood?”

Richard nodded, remembering his experience with helicopters in New Zealand, for filming _The Hobbit_ and for reaching remote skiing locations for holidays. He quite enjoyed riding in them. “This is amazing. Can I share this with my fans?” Richard had learned his lesson: don’t share anything without asking first.

Dan considered the request for a moment. “Yeah. Don’t say anything about what you’re doing or where you’re going. And make sure the patches don’t appear in the picture.”

“What do the patches mean?”

Dan pulled out a pocket flashlight. “This is for your name,” she said tapping the patch on Richard’s left breast with her free hand. “This is for DARPA,” she said tapping the DARPA logo patch, the first patch on his right breast. “This is my identifier,” she said tapping the second patch on his right breast. Dan’s identifier was the silhouette of a ghost skull in gold flanked by red sniper rifles on a black background with a thick maroon border. “So everyone knows you belong to me.”

"Ghostrider," Richard breathed out, connecting the design with Dan’s codename. Dan nodded in confirmation.

“You know,” Dan said as she glanced at her watched before looking back up at the sky, “so the boys don’t throw you off the back of the ship if they don’t like you.”

“What?” Richard swallowed the lump in his throat. Dan simply grinned back at Richard. He knew it was a joke, but like most of Dan’s jokes, it wasn’t particularly funny. Richard had a strong fear of water; imagining himself drowning in the violent ocean after being purposely left behind didn’t help the joke.

"I noticed you had one more?" Richard asked.

Dan had the same patches as Richard and an additional one: a silver jester hat in a solid black circle. “An operation I started with Vortex."

\---

Without a headset to listen to the pilot’s chatter and only empty ocean below, Richard had nothing to entertain himself for the ride. He struggled to stay awake, but found himself nodding off. Dan caught him out of the corner of her eye and without asking, tilted Richard so that his head rested on her shoulder. She wrapped an arm around his back to keep him from falling over when they experienced minor turbulence.

Richard mumbled a protest, but Dan silenced him with, “Sleep while you can.” She gently kissed him on the forehead. Richard sighed, closed his eyes, and settled into his new position. Richard couldn’t help the small smile that formed on his lips as he fell asleep. _She said it was so everyone knows I belong to her,_ he thought. _I like the idea of that. Belonging to her._

\---

“Hollywood, wake up,” Dan said into Richard’s ear while gently shaking him on the shoulder. “Wake up. You don’t want to miss this.”

Richard blinked a few times to clear his vision. He sat up and stretched his neck, trying not think about the fact that he was just sleeping on Dan and how wonderful it was. _It’s not like I told her about my decision to love her forever. She’s just being kind._

Dan squeezed Richard a little above his knee to get his attention and pointed out the window. All thoughts about his affection for Dan fled Richard’s mind as he stared in awe at the _Zumwalt-_ class destroyer beneath them. It wasn’t like anything he had ever seen before, as action movies tended to favor the massive battleships or aircraft carriers.

“If I’m totally honest,” Richard said, “it’s kind of hideous.”

Dan laughed and repeated the statement over the comms so the others could hear. And like Dan, they all laughed at his comment. “I like to think of it as the quiet, unassuming, lithe kind of strength. Which in its own way is sexy,” Dan said.

"Where do we land?" Richard asked when he noticed that the helicopter was hovering.

One corner of Dan's mouth kicked up into a half-smile. "We don't." She stood up and motioned for Richard to do the same. She clipped him into a harness as members of the flight crew tossed ropes down to the deck of the ship. “Rappelling down.” She explained the components and how to use them.

Richard swallowed a lump in his throat. He wasn’t particularly afraid of heights, but there was always the fear of doing something for the first time. Dan adjusted Richard’s harness, in hopes that the gesture would help Richard realize that the equipment wouldn’t fail him. “You’ll be fine,” she added. “If you fall, Vortex will catch you.”

Richard stuck his head out the open door and peered down at the man on the deck, who was organizing the equipment that was being lowered from the helicopter. Sure enough, it was Jason, wearing the same outfit he and Dan were wearing.

Dan hooked Richard onto the line. "Just take a deep breath and step off."

“Wait? What about you?” Richard asked. Dan wasn’t wearing a similar harness.

“FRIES,” she replied. “Anyway, stop fucking about and get off this chopper. You’re wasting American taxpayer money.”

Richard closed his eyes, steeled his will, and followed Dan's directions. He landed as a mess of limbs on the hard deck, but uninjured. Jason’s strong hands were all over him, helping Richard to his feet and unhooking the rappelling gear.

“FRIES,” Dan repeated to Richard when she gracefully planted her two feet down. “Fast roper insertion extraction system. Standard Marine technique for descending from a helicopter and useful for stealth missions.” She paused as she noticed how pale Richard’s face was. "You alright?"

Richard's hands were shaking slightly from the rush of adrenaline. "I'm still alive, so that counts for something." He managed an uneasy laugh. "Now what?"

"FTF, Ghostrider you check in with Lucky Strike. Hollywood, I’ll get you oriented to the ship. Then we get to work.”

Dan slung her duffel bag across her shoulders and disappeared. Richard took a moment to look at the Jason’s patch. There was a white cyclone underneath four bright blue stars on a black background with thick maroon borders. Vortex. "Does the black background with maroon borders mean anything?" Richard asked. "Dan has the same color scheme."

Jason shook his head; he wasn't about to tell Richard that the color scheme indicated that they were high-ranking intelligence officers. "We liked the color scheme. Thought it would be cute if we were matching," Jason lied.

\---

“Attention!” Jason bellowed out as he and Richard approached. Everyone, including Dan, spun smartly on their heels and snapped to attention, saluting Jason. Richard was impressed with how much respect and authority Jason had on the ship.

“Piss off, McAllister,” a portly, middle-aged man with severe hair loss snapped back while dropping his salute. He was wearing standard dark blue, digital pattern Navy fatigues and his name patch read “Knight.” Richard was surprised to hear the man’s thick London accent.

“Now that’s just rank, bruv,” Dan said in all seriousness and in an equally thick London accent. She glanced at Knight to see if he caught her pun and saw the barest hint of a smile on his lips.

 _Where did Dan learn to speak like a punk from the London inner city council estates?_ Richard thought. _Why is speaking like that?_

“Bollocks, Knight. You’re over the moon to see me.” Richard raised an eyebrow at Jason, who was doing his best to keep a straight face while doing a poor imitation of the London accent. Jason cleared his throat and said in his normal voice, “At ease, gentlemen.”

Knight turned his attention back to Dan. "We're running the diagnostic checks and once those clear, we're good to go."

“ETA to completion?”

“About two minutes.”

"Cheers. Who’s the bloody chav on the other side?"

“Fucking Linder.” Knight unhooked the radio from his belt and handed it to Dan.

“That shite wanker.”

“Better believe it, luv.”

“I believe it, but I don’t gotta like it.”

Knight bit his lower lip, trying to kill the smile that suddenly appeared on his features. But when Dan wiggled her eyebrows at him, daring him to laugh, Knight couldn’t keep the chuckle in any more. “Damn,” Knight swore as he shook his head in defeat.

“Ta, Lucky Strike. I’m the guv’nor!” Dan shouted and pumped her fist in the air.

“It’s a game they play,” Jason told Richard. “Knight is actually from Portsmouth, but he and Ghostrider see who can make the other laugh first with their stupid accent. The score is now 5-4 Lucky Strike.”

“Diagnostics complete,” a Navy technician chirped. “We are operational.”

"Sweets, this is Ghostrider,” Dan said with her normal voice into the radio Knight had given her.

"Afternoon, Ghostrider," Linder replied. "I hope this works."

"It'll work."

"That's what you said last time."

Dan snorted. "And I'll say it every time. What’s the aim?"

“25.67 by 294.5, use setting 4.”

“Copy that.” Dan watched over the technician’s shoulder as he entered the numbers Linder said into the computer. “We are go.”

“Firing in three… two… fire.”

Jason was handed a second radio, which was hooked up to the PA system on the ship. “Brace for shot in three… two… BRACE.” The technician slapped his hand on the launch button and the ship rocked back as a quarter-inch piece of two-inch thick rebar was fired at Mach 5 into the air.

Richard hadn’t known what to expect, so he awkwardly fell on his ass for the second time that day when the boat moved. Jason turned his head to smirk at him, but didn’t say anything or help him to his feet. Dan’s eyes were riveted to the myriad of displays in front of her, doing mentally calculations.

Just as soon as Richard climbed back onto his feet, he was startled by the sound of metal scraping against metal. But Richard’s fear that something terrible had happened was replaced with awe when he saw the incredible explosion off the horizon. _If this is what all that calculus and physics was for… I can totally see why she does it._

“That was fucking spectacular,” Jason breathed, lowering his binoculars. “Nice upgrades, Ghostrider.”

“Time to recharge?” Dan asked.

“T minus 30,” the technician replied.

“Thirty minute recharge. Switch to setting 5,” Dan said over the radio to Linder.

They repeated the exercise over and over, until they fired at the last setting.

“Do you need electrical assistance?” Linder asked.

Richard couldn’t believe the smile on Dan’s face. He had seen her smile before, but not like the way she was smiling right then. It was like Christmas had come six months early and she got everything on her list. “We are uncompromised,” Dan replied. “Thank you, Sweets.”

“My pleasure. Chat tomorrow.”

Dan handed back the radio to Knight. She addressed the small group of technicians who operated and maintained MJ. “Run the numbers, I want them by tonight. Damage report on MJ as well. Good work, N Bros.” Dan gave the men a quick salute and left them to their tasks.

“Today was a success?” Richard asked as he followed Dan.

“We repeat the exercise tomorrow and determine if MJ is fully operational under the new upgrades. If she is, then we try the double-tap.” She pulled the satellite phone that was holstered on her hip, where her gun normally would reside. “Do me a favor and tell Winters the good news.”

Richard nodded, knowing that although Clive would talk until his ear fell off, at least he would get explanations as to what Dan was talking about with upgrades and double-taps.


	21. At Sea

Richard flipped through the pages of doodles he had made in his journal while listening to Clive’s 2.5 hours long, rambling lecture about the railgun modifications. At one point, both his ears ached from having the satellite phone pressed up against them; Richard had set the phone down and Clive continued lecturing without any clue that Richard was not listening.

A small smile formed on Richard’s lips when he saw the drawings he did of both Dan’s and Jason’s identifier patches. Next to them was a drawing of what he thought his own patch would be: an emerald griffin standing on its hind legs, on a black background with a thick maroon border. _I’m not sure what griffins have to do with Hollywood in particular, but I like it._

Richard snapped the notebook shut and tucked it under his arm as he rose from his seat. He stretched and looked around the control room, noticing that it was still buzzing with activity from the railgun technicians. They were hard at work, preparing the report Dan wanted.

Not knowing where Dan, Jason, or Knight had disappeared to over an hour ago, Richard decided to wander around the ship. As he walked the hallways, he heard a large amount of raucous noise coming from the gymnasium training room. He pulled open the steel door and slipped into the back of a large crowd of cheering sailors. They had formed a half-circle around the sparring mats, where Dan and Jason were practicing together.

Dan and Jason had ditched their boots and their navy blue jumpsuits. Dan was wearing a black tank top with “HIGHWAY TO THE DANGER ZONE” printed in neon red letters and skin-tight black Lycra pants. Jason was wearing an olive green t-shirt and the same style of Lycra pants as Dan.

Richard blinked and Jason was lying on his side on the mat.

“It’s 7-5 Nguyen!” one of the men shouted. There was some grumbling as money exchanged hands. When Richard asked the sailor closest to him what the bet was, the sailor replied, “First to win at least five rounds, leading by two.”

Avery offered a hand to Jason and pulled him to his feet. “Good one, Vortex,” she said. “But you dropped your left side.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to drop into a back bend and come swinging in with your legs from the left.” Jason took a moment to catch his breath. “How’s the arm?”

Avery looked at her shoulder. “A little stiff.”

“Be careful. Connie will have your ass if you re-injure yourself.”

Avery shrugged and settled into an offensive fighting stance. “Not like I haven’t done it before.”

Richard noticed that this was the most relaxed that he had ever seen Avery. She was comfortable at DAPRA with Clive, but this was different. This was like she had returned to the home where she was born with the people who were with her at her birth. _How many more sides of this woman am I going to discover? Is she like the sea, where every day you get something different? Help me if that’s the case, for I find the sea intimidating._

Jason threw the first punch with his right hand. Avery caught his hand in the air with her left hand and pulled Jason forward using his momentum; she lifted her knee and jammed it into his upper abdomen. At the same time, she brought her right elbow down on the junction between Jason’s neck and shoulders. Jason groaned, but was able to flip Avery over his shoulder hard onto the ground.

Avery rolled out of the way, quickly climbed to her feet, and kicked Jason in the thigh. When Avery came in for an uppercut, Jason grabbed her wrist and balancing with his other hand on the ground, lifted and wrapped his legs around Avery’s arm. Jason did a forward summersault, so that Avery was lying on her stomach on the ground and Jason was sitting upright.

Avery relaxed and tapped twice, knowing that Jason had bested her. They untangled themselves and stood up.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” Avery asked.

“It’s a modification of that thigh-crusher move you do.” Jason smirked at Avery. “You know the one where you wrap your legs around their heads and flip them onto their backs.”

Avery threw her head back and laughed. “Oh! Your favorite move.”

“More or less.” As the crowd began to disperse, Jason noticed Richard lurking in the background. “I think your tourist wants you,” he mouthed.

Avery checked a glance over her shoulder at Richard before grinning at Jason. The expression on her face said, “In what way did you mean that?” Jason simply shrugged his shoulders in reply and started pulling on his jumpsuit.

“Come here, Hollywood.” Avery motioned for Richard to come over. “Let’s see what Vortex taught you.”

Richard shook his head. “You’ll drop me in three moves.”

Avery responded by moving in as quickly as lightning, sweeping her legs underneath him, and knocking Richard off his feet. Richard blinked and she was straddling his chest and had her knees pinning his arms uselessly at his sides. She had her left arm cocked back, ready to throw a punch.

Richard tapped the mat twice. Avery smoothly rose to her feet and offered Richard a hand. “Has Vortex been training you? Or have you two been canoodling?”

Jason barked a laugh, knowing that their relationship was the exact opposite of what would be conducive to canoodling. He was about to make a snide reply back, but was interrupted when one of the railgun technicians appeared in the doorway out-of-breath.

“Nguyen, you have to see the numbers,” he puffed out.

“Good or bad?”

“Orgasmic good.”

“You’re such a tease.” Without sparing a moment for say goodbye to Richard, she darted off after the technician.

Jason slapped Richard on the shoulder. “You’ll always come second to her work. She even did it to me.”

Richard knew that Jason had made the comment in an attempt to be sympathetic. But Richard was still miffed about what could be implied, that Dan had loved Jason more than she would ever love him. “Uh-huh.”

\---

With Dan wholly focused on crunching the numbers for the rest of the afternoon and late into the evening, Richard decided to take some time to organize the notes he made in his diary. He worked on the construction of the headspace where the mentally unstable and dangerous Alex lived.

Richard was pulled out of his thoughts when someone tapped him on the left shoulder. It was the young technician who declared that the numbers were “orgasmic good”. “Can I help you?” Richard asked.

“Can I take a peek at your patches?” the man asked nervously. Richard turned in a little more in his seat so the man could get a good look at his chest. “Thanks,” the man said while placing his hands firmly on Richard’s shoulders. He cleared his throat, leaned down, and firmly pressed his lips to Richard’s.

Richard was too surprised to react. He just sat there, stiff as a board, as the technician kissed him.

The entire room burst into laughter and money was once again exchanging hands. Richard blinked a few times, still stunned by the kiss. “What?” Richard managed to ask.

“He asked Nguyen if she needed anything before quitting for the night,” a man sitting a few tables away supplied. “She offhandedly said, ‘Give a kiss to Hollywood.’ So we all bet if he would actually do it. And how long it would take for him to work up the nerve to do it.”

Richard’s shoulders shook in laughter. Richard was pleased that Dan had thought about giving him a kiss. _Even if it was a slip of the tongue, the thought actually crossed her mind._

\---

The room Richard was assigned to stay in was more of a sardine can that looked like a jail cell than living quarters. The wall opposite the door had lockers with names written on them and a small desk. The two other walls housed bunks that were inset into the wall. Richard slide into the empty, lower bunk and pulled the curtain to give himself some privacy. He was relieved that he fit into the bunk, although barely.

Richard clasped his hands over his stomach, staring at the bottom of the bunk that was six inches away from the tip of his nose. It had been a long day and he fell asleep quickly, thinking of Dan.

\---

Richard woke with a literal jolt. Someone had discharged a Taser on the metal frame of Richard’s bunk; even though Richard wasn’t directly touching any metal, the electrical current was strong enough to push through the semi-insulating fabric of his mattress. Richard sat up and smashed his head on the steel frame of the bunk above him.

A pair of hands grabbed each ankle and dragged Richard out of his bunk. Richard groaned in pain as he dropped the three feet to the steel floor. Someone was holding a light directly in his eyes and two pairs of hands were pulling him to his feet. Richard was unceremoniously dragged through the hallways to the outside deck.

Richard stumbled along, trying to understand what was happening. He was too dazed and confused to know how to fight back. Or if he should fight back. “What’s happening?” he asked, distress cracking his normally strong voice.

The same pairs of hands that had dragged him were now peeling off his clothes, exposing Richard to the harsh oceanic wind in just his underpants.

 “Ritual for fresh meat,” one of the men replied while dumping a bucket of ice cold water over Richard’s head.

 _I’m being hazed,_ Richard thought as he wrapped his arms around his chest and shivered. _Of course I would be hazed in the military… Wait. It’s wrong to assume that. But if Dan said it was okay… They wouldn’t do this if she said no. And I want to be part of this family, to be closer to her._

With no other options, Richard curled into a defensive position and took the insults and the beating.

Richard groaned when one of the men kicked him a little too hard in the lower back, right next to his kidney. _That’s going to leave a nasty bruise,_ Richard thought.

“FALL IN!” a voice bellowed. His assailants stopped and pivoted hard on their heels at attention out of force of habit.

Now that the light was out of his face, Richard blinked rapidly and focused his vison. Dan was approaching with murder in her heart. Richard recognized the look from when he accidentally triggered her PTSD on the second day of his internship.

Watching her own crew gang up on Richard flung Dan back into a memory, of a time when was betrayed by her own CIA extraction team. Instead of helping her rescue Jason, they made her watch as they beat him to a pulp. The beating was to serve a warning that next time Jester wouldn’t be so lenient towards people meddling in his business.

To Dan in that moment, the three men were Queenie, Zeus, and Jester.

Without conscious thought, Dan drew back her hand and punched one of the men square on the nose. Richard flinched at the sound of bones cracking and the blood that splattered all over. The man staggered back on his feet and screamed in pain. Dan kicked him in the groin and as the man fell to his knees, she kicked him in the teeth.

The other two men ran away from Dan. She chased after them and launched herself in the air, feet first. She drove the heels of both her feet into the back one of the men’s neck. He flew forwards and Dan landed on top of him. The third man, realizing that running wasn’t the best option, turned around to fight. He threw a punch, but Dan blocked the punched with a high kick and then transitioned to wrap her leg around his elbow.

“How dare you,” she hissed. She pulled her leg down, dislocating the man’s shoulder. He collapsed to the ground moaning in pain and Dan kicked him in the teeth. She pressed her foot down hard on his throat, intending to suffocate him.

It was awe-inspiring to watch Dan spar with Jason. But now that she wasn’t pulling her punches in the slightest, Richard was terrified. _She’s deadly… Holy fuck she’s going to kill him._

Richard sprang to his feet to pull Dan into a hug and to lift her off the man. “Ghostrider,” Richard said into Dan’s ear. Dan struggled against him, elbowing Richard in the gut. Richard made a pained noise and his grip slackened on Dan. She fought her way free and stared at Richard, her eyes wild and her body ready to fight.

Richard reached out and gripped her shoulders tightly. “Ghostrider, be still and listen to me. It’s me, Hollywood. Just Richard Armitage. I’m okay. We’re okay.” Richard felt Dan’s body relax slightly beneath his hands. Richard slowly moved towards her and pulled her into a hug. “We’re both okay.”

Richard slowly sank down to the ground, pulling Dan into an awkward sitting position on his lap. “Sh... Sh… It’s okay,” Richard said soothingly. “It’s all okay. I’ve got you.” With the adrenaline still surging through her veins, Dan started shaking. Richard pulled her tighter into his arms and kissed her on the top of her head.

They stayed sitting there together, until Jason found them. Jason had gone searching for Dan because he knew she would be up and he wanted company. Jason didn’t entirely understand the context of the destruction he saw before him, but he didn’t ask questions. Jason knelt down next to Dan and tilted her face towards his.

“Hello, Vortex,” Dan said in a small voice.

“I’ll take of this,” Jason replied. “Take Hollywood with you.”

Jason lifted Dan to her feet from Richard’s arms. He tucked a stray lock of her hair behind her ear, letting his hand linger for a moment. Dan leaned into the touch. “We can talk later,” Jason said before giving her a gentle push in the direction of her quarters. Richard hastily pulled on his clothes and followed silently.

Dan’s room looked very similar to the one Richard had previously been occupying, except there was a small, private bathroom and only one set of bunk beds mounted into the wall. Dan held the door open for Richard to enter first.

“I’ll take the top bunk,” Dan said in a flat voice. “You’re not used to sleeping on a ship and I don’t want you rolling off your bunk in the middle of the night.” Dan stepped into the small room after Richard; when she closed the door behind her, Richard became more acutely aware of how small the space was.

Richard turned, his face a few inches from hers. “How are you doing?” The lock of hair Jason had tucked behind Dan’s ear had come loose again. Richard repeated Jason’s gesture of affection.

“I’m alright.” She noticed a bruise starting to darken on Richard’s face. She gently ran her thumb across the injury. “Take off your clothes. I have a balm that’ll help with the bruising.”

Richard shook his head. “I’m alright,” Richard replied, throwing Dan’s words back at her. “Bruises will make me look tough.” Richard tried to crack a smile, but the mood was too dark that neither of them found the joke amusing. He nervously chewed his lower lip. “I’m more worried about you.”

“I already said I’m fine,” Dan snapped back angrily. Richard made a wounded expression and she took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Richard. I’m sorry that they mistook you for someone you’re not. So please, just do what I tell you so I can feel better.” She went into the small bathroom to fetch the balm.

 _What does that mean? Who did they think I was?_ Richard thought. _But now is not the time to ask questions._ He stripped down to his underpants.

Dan started with Richard’s face, silently applying the paste to his injuries with gentle, massaging movements. Richard was glad that the past wasn’t excessively oily and that it didn’t have a strong odor. “Turn around,” Dan commanded and began working on the injuries on Richard’s backside.

Richard couldn’t suppress the grin on his face. _If this was an action film, this is part where I have insane, hurt/comfort sex with Dan. As if the last time she saw me without my shirt on wasn’t sexually charged enough._

When Dan finished her ministrations, Richard caught her wrist with his hand. “Thank you.” Dan avoided his gaze. “Hey. Hey, look at me.” He cupped her face with his hands and turned her face towards his. “I’m fine. I can take a beating, if it means you’re going to come rescue me.” Richard forced a smile, hoping that it would improve Dan’s mood.

Her frown deepened.

“I guess you’re not the only one who makes bad jokes.” That got a snort out of her. Richard interpreted it as a minor victory. He caressed her face with his thumbs. “I’m fine. I promise. Trust me, okay?”

Richard saw the vulnerability in her eyes. Dan had trusted him with her work at DARPA. And then again with some of her work for the CIA. But Richard was now asking for a different kind of trust; he was asking her to let him fully into her heart. He was asking her to trust him that he wouldn’t hurt her in the worst kind of way.

Richard leaned down and softly kissed Dan. He kissed her again and again, each kiss just as soft and passionate as the previous one. Dan’s arms snaked up around his neck and she rose up onto her toes to better meet him. Her lips parted in invitation and Richard readily accepted, running his tongue along her bottom lip before exploring the cavern of her mouth.

One of Richard’s hands snaked its way down Dan’s neck, breast, and stomach to rest on her hip. Richard pulled her pelvis towards him, so she could feel the half-formed erection through the thin fabric of his pants. Dan moaned softly and rolled her body against Richard’s, giving him some friction. Heat pooled in the base of his stomach and Richard needed more skin-on-skin contact.

Dan panted as Richard placed open-mouthed kisses along her neck as his hands fumbled to pull down the zipper of her jumpsuit. She ran her hands through his hair, firmly rubbing his ears and scalp. Richard finally got the jumpsuit and her shirt off and was tracing the scars on her shoulder with his tongue.

Dan pulled Richard back up to capture his lips with hers. Their hands roam all over each other’s bodies, the warm flesh electrifying under their fingertips. They explored the fine lines of each other’s muscles.

“Wait… wait…” Dan pulled away when Richard’s hands teased at the waistband of her Lycra pants. “The doors don’t lock…”

“Uh huh,” Richard mumbled back, unconcerned. “Then we do it standing up against the door. Between the two of us, no one could push their way in.”

Dan chuckled but moved as far out of Richard’s reach she could in the confined space. “We… really shouldn’t.”

Richard dropped his arms to his side and tried to keep his disappointment from his face. “Right… Well, uh… Goodnight then?” His heart pounded hard in his chest and he could feel the rush of blood with each beat.

Dan nodded. “There’s a bathroom… if you need it.” She climbed up onto her bunk and Richard climbed into his. Being on the lower bunk, he reached out and shut off the lights. He laid in silence for a few minutes, staring at the bottom of Dan’s bunk and trying to ignore the painful pressure in his groin.

 _Fuck. I don’t want to awkwardly jerk off to her when she’s in the same room,_ Richard thought. But when the discomfort wouldn’t go away, Richard palmed himself through his pants to relieve the edge.

“Dream of me,” he whispered before drifting off to sleep. _I love you._

\---

Avery smiled to herself, seeing Richard sleep. He was sprawled out on the bunk, one leg bent and tucked under the knee of other leg making the number four, one hand resting on his stomach, and one arm half hanging out of the bunk. She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead.

“I did,” she replied.


	22. Still At Sea

When Richard woke up the next morning, his duffel bag was placed on the floor next to his bunk and his miscellaneous items were neatly stacked on the table. Richard, stilly lying down, grabbed the folded piece of paper what was lying on top of duffel bag. Richard recognized Dan’s crisp, all capital letter handwriting.

_Breakfast 0600-0830_

_Lunch 1100-1230_

_Otherwise, see you in the control room at 1300_

_Balm on the shelf in the bathroom, use it_

Richard smiled to himself as he rapidly jumped out of his bunk. _It’s only 08:00, so if I hurry, I will still be able to make breakfast._ Richard quickly showered, changed his undergarments, and donned the same navy blue jumpsuit from the previous day. He trotted to the mess hall and entered at 08:25.

Dan and Jason were sitting very close to one other in the corner, talking conspiratorially in low voices. There were several files open in front of them and they were marking notes on them as they went; their arms tangled and crossed as they reached for files on opposite sides of the table at the same time.

A quote from  _Jane Eyre_  popped into Richard’s mind as the saw Unit GV19 working together in their element for the first time. “I feel as though I have a string under my left ribs tied to a similar string in yours.”  _Except_ , Richard thought,  _in this case it would be a durable, elastic cord. What do I have with Dan? A metal chain link?_ He mused over the question as he grabbed a cup of burnt coffee and a plate of rations.

Dan nudged Jason gently with her elbow and held her hand out, palm up. Jason slipped a $5 bill into her hand without lifting his eyes from the paperwork before him.

“What were you betting on?” Richard asked, taking a seat opposite the pair.

“When you’d show up,” Dan said, scribbling a final note in the margin of one of the papers. She quickly flipped all the folders closed, stacked them in a neat pile, and wedged them into the space between her and Jason’s thighs. She didn’t move quickly enough, for Richard caught a glimpse of a jester hat stamped onto the cover of one the folders. It was the same icon as the patch that she and Jason both wore.

“Does everyone on this ship bet on everything?” Richard forked some eggs and lifted them to his mouth.

“It’s good for morale, builds healthy competition, and doesn’t hurt anyone,” Jason replied.

Dan helped herself to one of Richard’s slices of toast. “Most N Bros are here for eight months out of the year. We have to keep them entertained somehow.”

The three sat in silence as Richard ate. Dan sipped at her own cup of burnt coffee and drummed her fingers on the table. Jason withdrew from his pocket a device that was too large to be a phone, but too small to be a tablet, and furiously punched notes into it.

Richard cleared his throat after he finished eating. “Should we talk about last night?” he asked Dan.

Dan raised an eyebrow at Richard. Her fingers stilled for a moment, before resuming the drumming at a quicker tempo. “What about it?” She met Jason’s gaze from the corner of her eye, her expression reading,  _Thanks for taking care of the mess._

Jason gave a slight nod.  _Unit GV19 is solid._ Then Jason’s lips pulled downwards into a slight frown.  _What is Hollywood referring to?_

Dan exactly mimicked Jason’s slight frown.  _Tell you later._

While Dan and Jason had their silent conversation, Richard glanced nervously between the two, not sure how to bring up the intimate moment he shared with Dan in the presence of her ex-fiancé. _What are they discussing?_ Richard wondered.

“Will it be a problem?” she asked, breaking the tense silence.

“No…”

“Then there’s nothing to talk about.”

\---

As the day progressed, Richard noticed that no one spoke about Dan’s PTSD snap or about the three men who had to be airlifted to the nearest naval base. It was business as normal. Dan and Jason had private meetings, Knight made cheeky chav jokes with Dan until one of them cracked, the entire crew banded together to test the railgun, Dan ate enough rations to feed four men, Jason hung out with the crew, and the technicians and Dan spent the evening evaluating results. And at night, they climbed into their respective bunks without any discussion.

The next morning Richard woke up ill at ease.  _Does she regret it? Is that why she avoided me all yesterday? Does that mean she regrets everything else that passed between us?_  The thought took Richard by surprise as he ate his breakfast, Dan and Jason sitting across from him and entertaining themselves in the same manner as the previous morning. It hadn’t occurred to him that it was a real distinct possibility; he had just assumed that she liked to keep herself busy and that there were a lot of things to do on the ship, especially because they only had four days to get through all the testing.

Bothered by this idea, Richard withdrew into himself and wandered the hallways glowering at anyone who crossed his path. He managed to corner Dan after one of her morning meetings with Jason. She was leaning on a railing and looking out over the ocean, enjoying the salty breeze that arose from the tumbling waves. Dan had released her hair from its tight bun and shucked the top half of her jumpsuit, tying the sleeves around her waist. She was wearing yet another black tank top, this time the words “I SLEEP WITH MY GUN” in neon yellow letters.

_She must be really fond of those shirts. I wonder how many versions of the same two outfits she has._

The scene in front of him reminded him of the photo he found in her office, when he had gone snooping around. Richard quickly realized this was the same ship in the photo and in the same location. _That photo must have been taken when they first installed the railgun. It would explain why Clive was also there at the time._

Richard took out his mobile phone and snapped a quick picture. He caught Dan at the right time, as she stretched and carded a hand through her fine hair.  _I think it would be nice if I framed this for her, to match the other one she has._

“I read something about the new aircraft carriers having EM catapults, to launch their fighter jets as well as smaller aircraft, such as drones.” Richard nonchalantly said as he took a position next to Dan. Richard leaned on the railing with the side of his hip, whereas Dan was facing forward to the railing. “You should take me to see it sometime. I’ve always wanted to fly in a fighter jet.”

Dan turned her head to nod at Richard. “Ironside.”

Richard raised an eyebrow in surprise. Partly because he didn’t know what she was talking about and party because he was taken aback about how beautiful she looked with her hair loose. It softly framed her normally stern face. He wanted to reach out and run his finger through the dark cascades.

“Ironside works on EMALS. Electromagnetic aircraft launch system. He hopes that we can replace the conventional steam-powered catapults sooner than later since they have faster refraction times and are more energy efficient. I’ll give him a call and see if we can arrange something. You’ve been working so hard that I think flying in a fighter jet would be a good ‘thank you’ gift.”

“Really?” Richard’s eyes lit up. “Have you ever flown in one?”

Dan shook her head. “It’ll be something fun for the both of us.” She smiled at Richard and Richard’s stomach did nervous flops of excitement.

They stood next to each other, watching the horizon for a few moments.

“Um… I wanted to ask you… Are we still pretending that… it didn’t happen?” Richard asked while picking at the sleeve of his jumpsuit.

“Pretty much. It doesn’t do anyone any good for the two us to get caught making out in the hallway corners.”

Richard breathed out a huge sigh of relief. “I was worried… you know… that you regretted what happened.”

Dan grabbed onto the railing and leaned back on her heels. “I don’t. But things are… complicated.” When she was resting flat on her feet again, she added, “You know… Vortex. And N Bros would rather not see their superior office engaging in PDA. Sometimes it’s best to show others what they want to see from you.”

“Is that why you’re such a chameleon?”

“Pot calling the kettle black.”

“I didn’t mean it in a negative way. But it would explain why you have so many… personalities.”

Dan caught herself before the words fell from her lips. After kissing Richard, the line between where her trust in him started and ended was blurred. The only other man she kissed like she had Richard was Jason, and there were no secrets between her and Jason; Dan was overcome with an overwhelming need to tell Richard everything. She wanted to say that it was an inherent part of being an intelligence office. Or in common vernacular: a spook.

“Helps with the job,” Dan said.

“Must be tough.”

Dan shrugged. “It’s not much different from what you do.”

Richard snorted. _Right. Because designing and protecting top secret military technology is very much like being an actor. You make my job seem like a stroll in the park._

A corner of Dan’s lips pulled into a slight smile. “Anyway, are you feeling better now? I got a report of you,” she cleared her throat and imitated Knight’s voice, “scowling at the hard deck.”

“Much. Thank you.”

“I have a few more meetings, and then it’s time for testing. I have a good feeling about today.”

“That’s what you say to Linder,” Richard joked. “Don’t lie to me.”

Dan chuckled. “You’re right. I don’t lie to you. The truth is, today is going to be an epic disaster and I’m going to lose my job.”

\---

“Pray for everyone’s safety, Sweets,” Dan said over the radio to Linder. “Commence test 1 of double-tap.”

“Targets fired,” Linder replied.

“Brace yourselves,” Jason announced over the PA system.

As soon as the second chunk of rebar was fired, all of the ship’s electronics shut off. The emergency lighting flared on. The control room was eerily silent, without the whirring of all the modules. Without the control system for the ballast, the  _Zumwalt-_ class destroyer tilted at a very dangerous angle and everyone who didn’t have a good grip on something fell flat on their backs. Including Richard, Dan, and Jason.

“Shit,” Dan cursed out as she picked herself up off the floor. “Damn. Fucking fuck. Fuck.”

“Engineering reports 20% auxiliary power,” one of the technicians shouted from across the room.

“Anyone overboard?” Knight called out.

“Negative,” someone called back.

“Any injuries?”

“Bumps and bruises.”

“ETA full auxiliary power?” Dan asked.

“Maybe an hour.”

Dan considered her options for a moment. She lifted the radio to her lips and told Linder, “Sweets, we’re down for an hour. Stand by.”

“Standing by.”

With nothing to do until engineering repaired auxiliary power, and eventually full power, everyone milled around. Some of the men went out onto the hard deck to smoke; some of the men gathered in a small circle and chatted. Jason and Knight went to check on the other departments and help with cleaning up all the things that fell off the shelves. Dan laid down on the ground in an unoccupied section of the control room.

Richard furrowed his eyebrows at her. “What are you doing? Napping?” _As if the woman who doesn’t sleep is going to take a nap right now._

“Thinking,” Dan replied. She locked her fingers together and rested her hands on her stomach. “We can’t confirm until we check the numbers, but the electrical failure was either caused by the batteries failing or some unanticipated magnetic interference. Either way, I’m considering our options for improvement in both scenarios.”

Richard took a seat on the ground at Dan’s head, his back resting flush against the wall. “Being comfortable might help with the thinking.” He cautiously lifted a hand, letting it hover in the air over her head. “Do you want me to massage your scalp?”

The corners of Dan’s eyes crinkled with her smile, but she didn’t laugh out loud. Richard was taken aback for the second time that day by how beautiful she looked, smiling like that. “I think I’m alright. Thanks for offering.”

“Okay.” Richard folded his arms across his chest, closed his eyes, and meditated.  _I wish I had my notebook with me right now. I have to remember this, the feeling of swiftly going from palpable excitement to crushing disappointment. And preserving without any hesitation through that disappointment._

\---

Richard looked up from his script when Dan trudged into the room. He had been pacing the small space and practicing vocal inflections when she entered; Richard just stepped off to the side to make space for Dan. She stripped off her jumpsuit and tossed it into her locker. She climbed into her bunk, sighed heavily, and rolled onto her side to face the wall.

“So… what was the problem?” Richard asked.

As soon as she saw the numbers, she and a handful of men sequestered themselves into a conference room to draw circuit diagrams, and to solve physics and mathematics that overwhelmed any lesser engineer. Dan took her satellite phone with her, to talk with Clive. They stayed there all evening, working. When Richard had dropped off dinner for the group, everyone was frowning and mumbling incoherent things to themselves.

“The pulse generator.” Dan tapped just her right index finger the wall, as if she was sending a Morse code message to someone on the other side. “The simple explanation is we didn’t allow for enough recovery time. The pulse generator sucked all the power out to create the desired square wave, instead of outputting some shitty signal.”

“How do you fix it?” _What can I do to make you feel better?_

“We design a better pulse generator.” Dan barked a single laugh.

“Easier said than done?”

“You’re a bona fide genius, Hollywood.”

“Can I kiss you goodnight?” Richard blurted out. “I mean… I’m sorry. That just came out. I think the railgun also short-circuited my brain-to-mouth filter,” Richard stammered. He blushed furiously and hung his head, glad that Dan was staring at the wall instead of at him when the words were spoken.

Dan shifted to lean over the edge of bed and to have her head also level with Richard’s. Richard closed the small distance and placed a firm kiss on her lips. He could feel them both smiling under the kiss. Richard also couldn’t remember the last time he was romantically involved with someone his own height; he liked being able to kiss Dan without having the stoop over.

When they broke, Dan said, “Give me one more, just for good measure.”


	23. A Death in the Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I consider this chapter as the turning point of the story. I'm going to focus less on building the relationships between the characters and more on the espionage. I also want to send you a massive thank you, for sticking around and reading my story. I hope you continue to enjoy!
> 
> And I recently moved 1500 miles and started a new job; unfortunately, chapters are probably going to be posted even more slowly (as if my once-a-month updates aren't slow enough already).

"Status report." Joshua was sitting in his regular spot, his long legs daintily crossed, and one hand rested comfortably on his thigh. The other hand was balled into a fist and used to prop his head up.

"Post Columbus, we tensed Ghostrider," Queenie said. "They took back one copy of the Hunter plans we'd been collecting."

"They still know nothing about our Syrian plans," Zeus added. "McAllister senior sent a hit squad to pressure our engineer, but got nothing out of it. Their new kid, Myles, started monitoring Syrian and Jordanian activity and picked up the phrase 'dancing pumpkins.' But he doesn't know what it means, otherwise they would have made their move."

"Ghostrider is just watching and waiting," Queenie said.

"What is she doing now?" Jester asked.

"Railgun testing, as per her normal DAPRA employment," Michael supplied. "She's coming to visit my informant in London afterwards."

Joshua drummed his fingers on his thigh, thinking. "What does your informant know about 'dancing pumpkins?'"

"Nothing. But Ghostrider is colluding with my informant to find the answer."

Joshua stood up and paced with hands clasped behind his back. "So everything is in place? All we need is for my girl to give up Hunters?"

"I still vote for the direct route. Take her and torture the information out of her," Zeus said. "We can break her this time."

Joshua shook his head. "No, no... I want to get inside her head and her have defeat herself. I want her to want to surrender to me." Joshua turned his head and met Michael's eye for the first time that evening. "Besides the four, is there anyone else close to her?" 

Michael caught the sadistic gleam in Joshua's eyes and a shiver ran down his back. Michael shook his head. "Just the new kid, Myles. He rounds out the four."

"Well, then..." Joshua leaned forward towards Michael, his face a few inches away. Michael had to suppress a second, violent shudder. "Take care of your informant. He's been stumbling around the fringes of our business for too long. Of the four, he's the best to strike out."

Michael's mouth dropped open. "You can't be serious," he stuttered after swallowing a lump in his throat. "He might be a threat, but my informant... he's... you know..." Michael uselessly flopped his hands in the air, hoping that Joshua would catch his drift. "He's my... you know... brother."

Zeus snorted and Michael broke his eye contact with Joshua for angrily glare at the man. Zeus walked over and slapped Michael hard on the shoulder. "You gave him the moment you joined us."

"I could try to turn him," Michael said desperately.

Joshua shook his head. "Do you really think Eric would give up his beloved Ghostrider?" Joshua took Michael's silence as an affirmative answer.

\---

Without knocking, Jason let himself into Dan's room. Dan was sitting at the small desk, drawing diagrams and explaining to Richard the basic principles of how pulse generators worked. Richard was standing off to her left, leaning over her shoulder and with one hand braced on the back of Dan’s chair. In perfect unison, Dan and Richard turned their heads to look at Jason.

Jason held out his satellite phone to Dan. “Falcon has something for you.”

Dan stood up and took the phone from Jason; she stood in the doorway, her back turned towards the two men in an attempt to create some privacy. Jason took a seat on Richard’s bunk.

“Ghostrider.”

Myles hesitated on the other side of the line. “Ghostrider… I have… It’s…”

 _What's bothering Falcon so much?_  Dan wondered. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach.

Myles took a few deep breaths. “Vauxhall called,” he finally managed to say. “They wanted to let you know that Eric Harrison was assassinated in his London office last night.”

Dan’s hands clenched tightly around the phone and her knuckles turned white. Dan’s lips pulled into a tight line and she bit the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from bursting into tears.

Myles sounded uncomfortable as he cleared his throat before continuing. “Vauxhall said that it’s unusual for them to contact us about things of this nature, but… uh… Mr. Harrison has explicitly stated in his will that everything is to be in your care.”

Dan didn’t respond. She rested her forehead against the cool metal door and closed her eyes. She willed herself not to cry, but a few stray tears fell despite her best efforts.

“I’m truly sorry, Ghostrider.” Myles had only met Eric the one time in Malaysia, and liked the man, but he knew that Dan had a long-standing friendship with the MI-6 agent. “And, um… Arrangements had been made for you to go to London today; a helicopter is on its way to you. The funeral and debrief is tomorrow.”

Dan, again, didn’t respond. She slowly lowered the phone from her ear and let her arm hang at her side. She forced her face into a blank expression before turning around to hand the phone back to Jason with shaking hands. Without saying anything, she left herself out of the room.

Richard was about to go after her, but Jason placed a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. Jason recognized the look on Dan’s face; he had seen it for weeks when she was in recovery after the Palestine mission. It didn’t indicate that she was going to have a PTSD episode, but that she wanted time alone to process the deep sense of loss she felt. It was the expression she made when she remembered the loss of her best friend and Clive’s wife, Sarah. It was an expression that haunted Jason because he knew there was no way for him to help Dan.

They waited ten minutes, only leaving to search for Dan when the screaming started. Dan was leaning over a railing, alternating between screaming at the sea at the top of her lungs and dry heaving. Richard could feel his blood curdling in his veins at the miserable noises Dan was making. He wanted to cover his ears against the anguished cries that continued until her voice gave out.

It was only through years of being a CIA agent and controlling her emotions that Dan was finally able to pull some semblance of herself together. She took a slow, deep breath. Then she turned towards Jason and Richard. Richard took a few steps towards Dan, worried that if he moved too quickly she would dart away like a frightened animal.

“What happened?” Richard asked, his voice soft.

“I have to go to London,” she replied flatly in a broken, hoarse voice.

“Why?”

“There’s been a death in the family. I have to clean through the mess,” Dan said.

“I want to come with you.”

Dan shook her head. “Not this time. It’s personal.”

Richard placed his hands on her shoulders. “All the more reason for me to come with you.”

“This is truly personal and I don’t want you be involved with it.”

Richard frowned, but didn’t look away from Dan. “Have these past few weeks meant nothing to you?” _The small gestures: holding hands, private smiles, kissing. Was it all an act to keep me satisfied? To make it easier for her to keep tabs on me because you think of me a security risk?_ “Because I was under the impression they did.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point?” Richard demanded, throwing his hands angrily up into the air.

Dan floundered for a response, which only made Richard angrier. She wanted to shout back, “Because I am emotionally compromised and I might not be able control what comes out of my mouth. Some secrets have to stay secret!” But she knew that would only make matters much worse. As much as she had come to love the man, she knew that there would come a time when she had to leave him behind. The less Richard knew, the easier it would be.

“I can’t ask it of you,” Dan replied, looking down. _I can’t ask you to blindly trust me, to not ask questions. I can't ask you to let me continue to deceive you. I wouldn’t do the same for you._

“I’m just trying to help you.” He reached out a hand to Dan, but she took a step back.

“I don’t want your help,” Dan lied. Her emotional side demanded that she take Richard with her, to have him support her when she wouldn't be able to stand on her own; her rational side said it was inviting complications for both her and the CIA.

“Dan, don’t say that.”

“Just fucking respect my privacy!” She turned and ran away.

Jason’s hand was back on Richard’s shoulder, rooting him to the spot. “I’ll talk to her,” Jason said, not unkindly. “She just lost one of her closest friends; she’s in a lot of pain.” Jason gave Richard a squeeze. “I know it’s hard, especially with Avery. But hang in there.”

At the words "closest friend," a sense of panic rose in Richard. “It’s not Clive. Is it?”

Jason shook his head. “Someone even more important to her. Besides, Clive isn't in London.”

Richard stared at the spot Dan had previously occupied. He tried to think of who this friend was; he had only really gotten to know Clive, Jason, and Myles. And given how close Dan and Clive were, Richard had trouble imaging who this friend was.

\---

“Richard is going with you,” Jason said as Dan strapped herself into the rappel line that would lift her into the helicopter. “I don’t want you going alone, and I’ve already briefed him. Please, let him help you where I cannot.”

"The Shadow Factory?"  _There is a high security risk. I might spill State secrets._

Jason shook his head. "You're not useful to us broken."  _We can fix anything you break. But we can't fix anything without you._

Dan sighed and clasped forearms with Jason in the Roman handshake. “Unit GV19 is solid.” _Thank you for always taking care of me._

Jason cupped the left side of her face with his hand. _My pleasure_. As much as Jason wanted to kiss Dan in that moment, he refrained himself. He settled for pressing his forehead against Dan’s and gently caressing her cheek with his thumb. _I love you._

\---

A stern-faced woman with curled, dark brown hair was waiting for Dan and Richard at the airport. Dan clasped forearms with the woman and the woman squeezed back. “My name is Mara,” she said once they let go of each other's arms. “I’m sorry about Bonesaw.”

"Did you know him?"

"Administrative duties. But he was always the charmer." She gave Dan a weak smile. "I will miss him."

Dan nodded solemnly. "Me too."

Mara offered a pair of car keys to Dan. “The driver’s panel should have everything you need. The funeral is scheduled at 09:30, George’s Park, north London.”

"Take care," Dan said when she accepted the keys from Mara. She drove the silver Lexus IS coupe to Eric's residence, making record time with her speeding and overly aggressive driving.

After she parked and shooed Richard out of the car, she removed the paneling on the driver’s side door and pulled out a black bag. She unzipped the bag and pawed through its contents: disposable phones, fake passports for both her and Richard, $50,000 USD in multiple foreign currencies, and a fully loaded Glock 17 with extra cartridges.

Dan zipped the bag back up and slung it over her shoulder. She walked up to Eric’s front door and slid her DARPA badge through the lock. A panel on the wall slid over and a biometric scanner popped out. Dan leaned forward to complete the retinal match and placed her hands on the scanner.

Satisfied with Dan’s identity, the scanned disappeared back into the wall. There was a click as the front door popped slightly ajar, inviting Dan to entire. Dan pushed the door fully open and stepped through. She inhaled the air of Eric’s small home; she could pick out the all too familiar scents of his cologne and cinnamon apple scented candles.

“Welcome back,” Hien said. A few of the lights turned on. “Should I let Bonesaw know you’re here?”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Dan replied. “Please set an alarm for tomorrow morning, 07:30.”

“Done.”

Dan made her way to the kitchen, leaving all the lights off except the ones Hien had automatically turned off. She put water in the electric kettle to boil and prepared two cups of tea. As she waited for the water to boil, she wandered into the small living room space. Dan made a strangled noise when she saw the handful of photos Eric had taped to the wall of Eric, Jason, and herself. Dan ripped the photos off the wall and stumbled over the couch, where she sat down heavily.

Richard took a seat next to her. “What are these?” he asked, indicating the photos.

Dan offered the stack of photos to Richard. Richard recognized two of the photos; the one of Dan leaning over the battleship railing and the one of Dan posing with Jason as Unit GV19. There was a photo of her and Eric Harrison, wearing matching rugby shirts and smiling into the camera. There was another photo of her and Eric, wearing cold weather hiking gear and standing beneath Tibetan prayer flags.

While Richard looked over the photos, Dan made tea. She handed a mug to Richard and he offered her a thankful smile.

“There’s a spare bedroom you can use,” Dan said. “MI-6 probably wants this house back, so I have to start sorting tonight.”

“Do you want help?”

“No.”

Richard yawned and rose to his feet; he knew a dismissal when he heard one. He leaned over and kissed Dan on the top of her head. “Don’t stay up too late,” he said.

She nodded her reply. Starting in the living room, Avery sorted the items into piles of what she was going to take home with her, what would be returned to MI-6, and what could be left in the flat for the next agent. Even though Eric was sentimental and collected souvenirs from previous operations, he was smart enough to know not to bring active work home with him.

As Avery sorted through Eric’s possessions, she came across the beautiful Breitling military watch that she had bought him at the end of their first operation together.

_Jason had already boarded the private jet that would take them back to Washington, DC. Avery lingered at the base of the jet's stairs, chatting with Eric._

_“Despite having had nowhere to go, you always managed to be late. I was usually too impressed to be angry with you.” Avery held out a small box to Eric. “It’s a gift of respect and friendship. And when you wear it, you’ll always think of me.” She winked at him._

_Eric chuckled and accepted the gift. “I don’t have to wear it to remember you.” He whistled when opened the lid and saw the beautiful watch inside. “Take care in the Shadow Factory, my dear. Make sure to visit the Circus.”_

_“With a dancing bear like you?” Avery joked. “How do you expect me to stay away?”_

Avery ran her finger around the black steel case, admiring the craftsmanship of the watch. She strapped the black fabric strap around her wrist and appreciated the weight of the watch. No, she wasn’t going to give this away. Avery laid down on the couch, taking a few minutes to herself to review the memories and admire the beautiful watch.

\---

When Richard had first met Dan, he wondered if she ever slept; it had kind of become a running joke between them. And even when they shared the small quarters on the ship and Richard knew that she slept for at least a few hours every night, he had never actually seen her asleep with his own eyes. It was strange, seeing the woman who was usually a flurry of activity and words so still.

Richard was familiar with the adage, “You can tell a lot about a person by the way they sleep.” His heart broke as he looked at Dan, her arms folded and squished against her chest, and her knees brought up into a tight fetal position. Richard noticed that even in sleep, she had a slight crease in her brow and a frown.

 _She looks like she’s fighting demons_ , Richard thought to himself. He looked at the mourning woman, his heart breaking at the sight of her reduced to something so fragile.

Richard returned to the bedroom to grab the comforter, and then draped it over Dan’s sleeping form. She stirred a little and Richard gently placed his ran his hand over her silky smooth, black hair. “Sh…” he said gently. “Go back to sleep. I’ll let you know when it’s time.” _I’m sorry about what happened. I wish there was a way for me to help you with the pain… because I love you so much._

He wandered into the kitchen and dug through the cupboards for some tea. _Why the hell does this guy have hundreds of cans of the same kind of food?_ Richard grabbed the box of tea bags and two cans of soup.

By the time Richard finished making tea and heating up the soup, Dan appeared in the archway leading to the kitchen. Richard frowned slightly at her disheveled appearance. Her eyes were red-rimmed and sunken into her face. Her skin was pale. Her hair looked like a rat’s nest. It was also strange, seeing the woman who was usually so composed so unkempt.

“I hope you like tomato soup, because that’s all your friend has. Except baked beans and mushy peas.”

Dan chuckled. “Sounds like Bonesaw. It’s a miracle he is-” Dan caught herself. “Wasn’t malnourished.”

“Who was Eric Harrison to you?”

Dan took a seat at the table and Richard placed a steaming cup of tea in front of her. She gave Richard an appreciative smile. “He was a lot of things to me.” Dan absentmindedly traced the rim of her mug with an index finger.

“Tell me the things about him that I couldn’t read about in a report.”

She thought about her answer for a few minutes. “Mara, the woman from the airport  yesterday, would agree that Bonesaw was very much the James Bond type of character. He was a serious man in general, but he could charm the pants off of anyone." She tapped her index finger on her mug. "We loved to do crossword puzzles." Dan fell silent and Richard decided not to push the topic further.

\---

 _“Hello, darling,”_ _Eric purred as he took a seat next to Avery, despite all the other empty seats at the military airport terminal. Clive was still using the toilet and Sarah was taking a call. “Eric Harrison, MI-6. Care for a crossword puzzle?” He offered that morning’s newspaper, the edges neatly folded just so the puzzle was showing, and a red pen._

_“Avery Nguyen.” She accepted the paper and pen._

_“Typically takes me 10-15 minutes.”_

_“I’m about the same.” Avery wrote neat letters into boxes, chatting with Eric as she worked. She looked up with a raised eyebrow, when she finished. “How’d I do?”_

_“13.5 minutes.” Eric gave her a broad grin. “I think we’ll get along quite well. Might give Vortex a run for his money.”_

_Avery chuckled and met Eric's eyes directly. "Do your worst. If the reports are true, then you're harmless."_

_"And those same report told me you were a sweet tempered, sweetheart."_

\---

Avery wore a charcoal grey, knee-length military shirt dress underneath a soft brown, caramel-colored cashmere sweater with a shallow V-neck and shoulder patches. She had rolled the sleeves of her shirt so that the cuffs folded over the sweater.

“You look nice. The sweater matches your eyes.”

“Thank you.” Avery walked past Richard into the bedroom. She pulled the closest open and started looking for something that would fit Richard. She pulled out a crisp white shirt and cardigan that was the same color as hers with black buttons. “You’re taller than Eric, but approximately the same build. While you shower, I’ll look for trousers that might fit you.”

Avery managed to find a pair of black trousers that were barely long enough for Richard. She also found a black tie and polished, black Oxfords.

“Do I look okay?” Richard asked after he put on the ensemble.

Avery reached up and adjusted the knot of his tie. “You look great.” She let her hand linger, taking some comfort in the domesticity of the situation. “Let’s get to it.”

“By the way, how you have clothes here that fit you?”

“I lived with Eric twice, for a few months each time. After our first operation together, and after Palestine.” She was standing at the front door, putting on her shoes.

“Wait…” Richard called out to Avery’s back. “Isn’t it back luck? To wear a dead man’s clothes?”

Avery shrugged. “I am aware of the superstition that you’ll inherit the luck of the dead man’s clothes you’re wearing. But I like to think Bonesaw was rather lucky in life.”

\---

If Richard didn’t know any better, he would have thought they were at an MI-6 briefing rather than a funeral service. There were only a handful of other attendees, dressed semi-formally in dark clothing. Everyone remained stoic as Eric’s boss recounted what had happened.

_Harrison's body was found at 03:35 outside his London office, a bullet between the eyes. The autopsy showed that the bullet was fired at close range from a standard issue SIG Sauer and there was no sign of physical altercation. A pack of Dunhill cigarettes was found on the scene, indicating that Eric had gone out for a smoke, encountered a friendly face, and was assassinated by said friendly. As for the motivation, no one is sure because none of Eric’s possessions were missing from his person or his office. No one accessed or tampered with Eric's files._

After the short service, Dan remained sitting. One by one, the attendees approached a young man that reminded Richard of Myles and shared their regrets over Eric’s death. Then they came over to Dan and placed a hand on her shoulder; they shared silent nods. Once everyone was gone except themselves and the young man, Dan slowly rose to her feet. She made a motion at Richard for him to remain sitting. “Stay here. I need to talk to Eric’s brother.”

Avery approached Michael, who was looking out the window at a sea of grave stones. She placed a hand on Michael’s should and he turned to face her. He looked in just as bad shape as Avery did. They hugged each other tightly for a few minutes. Avery was never as close to Michael as she was to Eric, but still cared deeply about the younger brother.

“Ghostrider.”

“Bonecrusher.”

They stood together in silence for a few moments. "The groundskeeper won't let me bury him next to our parents."

"But that's not going to stop you."

Michael shook his head. "I'm going to bury his cremains between them and plant some flowers."

"Eric would like that."

"Yeah... I think so."

“You know, my brother was very fond of you.” He pulled a thick manila envelope out from the inside of his overcoat. “These are photos and personal things that we thought you might want to have from his office.”

“The funeral’s just barely over and they’ve cleaned out Bonesaw’s office?” She shook her head and took the envelope from Michael. “Ruthless efficiency.”

Michael shrugged. “Bonesaw was investigating a Dr. Benjamin Hunters when he was… you know…”

Avery felt worse, knowing that she was partly responsible for Eric’s death. He was investigating the same matter, but she had specifically ask him to dig out information about Hunters. “Thanks for letting me know,” she with a small nod.

“Armitage?” Michael asked, looking past Avery’s shoulder at Richard, who was lurking alone in the back corner of the church.

“DARPA doesn’t let him go unsupervised.” She shook her head. “We’re attached at the hip.”

A hint of a smile pulled at one corner of Michael’s lips. He knew that it was a lie; even though Avery and Richard had kept a professional appearance, Michael knew Avery and could read her. “Take care, Ghostrider. These people… they are dangerous.”

“You too, Bonecrusher.”

Avery left with Richard following behind her. Michael pulled out his phone and called Joshua. “I think I have our in,” he said. "There are five; my informant never mentioned it because even he didn't know."

\---

The first thing Dan did once she and Richard returned to Eric’s apartment was break the seal on the manila envelope. There were more photographs of them together. There was even a small notebook, where they had kept track of all their silly competitions: who solved the day's crossword faster, who came up with the wittiest pun, who could wield the most pompous vocabulary. And some of Eric’s personal things, like his cigarettes, his lighter, and a pair of thin-framed reading glasses.

She stood up and walked to a cabinet in the kitchen filled with fine liquors. She grabbed the closest bottle of scotch and took a long pull straight from the bottle. She choked as the liquid burned her throat, but she didn’t care.

“Go Hien,” Dan said. “Transfer everything to Ghostrider IGOR at DARPA. Send Vortex a passcode to access my terminal for the files.”

“Transferring…”

“I want records of everything Bonesaw ever did since Malaysia. And build a list of all files Bonesaw was looking at and do a correlation analysis. We’re mapping.”

“I will compile those after the transfer.”

"I also want everyone he came into contact with over the past two years. Rank by frequency of contact."

"Okay."

“Also follow protocol Star Shine.”

“Are you sure?” Hien replied.

“Yes,” Dan replied. Dan lifted the bottle to her lips and took another long pull.

“I’m sorry,” Hien said softly.

Richard jumped, startled by all the secret panels that were being opened throughout the small flat. Hidden boxes and weapons caches were exposed. Dan walked around, collecting all the boxes and placing them on the coffee table in the living room.

“There is also a message for you, Ghostrider,” Hien said after a few minutes. “Would you like me to play it?”

“Play.”

“Hello my dear, my sweet,” Eric said. “If you’re hearing this message, then it seems I’ve met an untimely demise. But if anyone is going to figure out why, then it’s going to be you.” He huffed a laugh. “I just wanted to let you know that it’s be a real pleasure working with you over the years. I’m sorry I won’t be around to see you get married or have children or kick more ass. Love you, Ghostrider. I’ll be waiting for you on the other side; but no hurry.”

All the tears that she had holding back burst from her eyes. She crumpled onto the sofa, curled into a ball, and sobbed hysterically. The same wailing noises from her initial reaction to the news once again escaped her lips. Richard, not sure what to do for her but not wanting her to be alone, sat on the floor and leaned against one end of the couch. Dan cried until she fell asleep, her body out of energy and a numbness enveloping her.

Dan woke up a few hours later. She blinked in the light, not sure what time it was. She looked at her watch, which read 01:00. She slowly sat up, her back stiff, and Richard grumbled half-asleep from her movement. Dan gently urged Richard to his feet.

“What?” Richard complained. He was tired and his entire body was sore from sitting on the floor in one position for too long.

“Come on,” Dan gently replied. “Let’s go to bed.”

Richard followed Dan to the bedroom and crawled under the sheets with her. They slotted neatly together and Richard nuzzled the back of her neck, inhaling the lilac and lavender scent of her hair. Before he could process the fact that he was in bed with Dan, he had fallen back asleep.

\---

A few hours later, Avery woke up again. Richard was spooning her, one arm draped over her waist. Carefully, Avery extracted herself from Richard’s arms and went to the living room. She opened the boxes and examined the contents inside. It brought back memories, breaking Avery’s heart all over again. She reached for the bottle of scotch and polished it off. Then she pulled another bottle from Eric’s shelf.

The souvenirs reminded Avery just how lonely she was. Of how few people she had let into her life over her career. And the fact she would not get a second opportunity with Richard.

Avery slipped back into bed with Richard. Without preamble, her cool hands slipped beneath the sheets and palmed Richard’s dick through the fabric of his underwear. He was awoken by his arousal and he turned his face towards her. She immediately started kissing him. Richard groaned, enjoying the sharp and spicy taste of her lips.

Richard wanted this. He had dreamed about this on several occasions. But a niggling voice in the back of his head told him that this was wrong. Richard gently pushed Dan away from him and his heart broke at the wounded expression on her face.

“You don’t want it?” Dan pouted.

Richard shook his head. He could smell the alcohol on her breath. “You’ve been drinking. A lot.”

“So what?”

“Dan, you know this wrong.”

“If it’s wrong… I don’t want to be right.” She leaned in again to kiss Richard.

He pushed her away. “Dan, no.”

“You don’t want me?”

Richard hesitated, trying to think of the best way to proceed. “No, no. I want you! But not like this.”

“This is me.”

“I want it only if you genuinely care about me. Not because you’re suddenly lonely.”

Dan stood up, furious. She stalked out of the bedroom and slammed the door shut behind her. Richard cringed when he heard her scream and smash glass, probably the empty bottle of alcohol. Richard screwed his eyes shut tightly and wished he was anywhere but where he was at that moment.

 _I have to do something. This is the time she needs me most ._ Richard rose and pulled some clothes on.  _She's lonely, lost, angry, and confused. She needs someone to tell her that it's all going to be okay._

Richard found Dan slumped in one corner of the couch, her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. There was second bottle of whiskey on the floor next to her, the cap off and almost empty. At her feet was a box that was smaller than the others. Richard slowly lowered himself to the ground next to Dan and moved the bottle of whiskey out of Dan’s reach.

Richard first wrapped her in a blanket, remembering something from somewhere about the therapeutic effects of a shock blanket. Then he wrapped his arms around Dan and pulled her to him. He wanted to say he was sorry, but like when he had first met Dan, words seemed inadequate. So he sat in silence with her, letting her sob until she ran out of tears and her shoulders stopped shaking violently.

With one arm still around Dan, Richard picked up the contents of the box: a stack of photographs, a few loose sheets of paper, two British passports, and a solved crossword puzzle. “Sao Ni Le?” Richard asked when he opened one of the passports and saw a photo of a much younger looking Dan inside. The other passport was for a “Thomas Hartford,” and Richard assumed it was Eric Harrison’s cover.

“Sao Ni Le,” Dan replied, correcting Richard’s pronunciation. “She was my cover, when I worked with Bonesaw.”

“Tell me about it.”

Dan took a shaky breath and reached for the stack of photographs. She pulled out one of her, Eric, Clive, and Sarah posing together on the Great Wall of China." When I was working on my second PhD, I traveled around Asia with Winters to test some of our EMP null zone designs. It was called Operation Blitz. It was relatively dangerous work, so the CIA lent us Snowfall and MI-6 lent us Bonesaw. We all got legends and played spy. Over those eight months, Bonesaw and I became very close friends; we continued to stay in touch for years following." Dan showed Richard another photo, of her and Eric standing outside in the light London rain with Vauxhall in the background across the river. 

“Who was Eric Harrison to you?” Richard repeated his question from that morning.

“The running joke was that I would have married him if Vortex hadn’t found me first.”

“Oh.”

“In all seriousness... He was both the father and the older brother I never had. He was my family.”

Richard stayed up all night with Dan, listening to her stories about Eric and their adventures throughout Asia. There were several pieces of information missing and sometimes Richard was lost in the technical jargon, but he didn’t want to interrupt Dan. There was a sense of urgency to her words, as if she needed to get them out before she forgot the stories.

When morning came around, Dan rose with the sun and retrieved two cans of beans from the kitchen. She offered one can to Richard and proceeded to eat the cold beans directly out of the tin. “I think you should go home and visit your parents. It’s going to take me a few more days to clear out all of Bonesaw’s stuff.”

Richard shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Why not? I’ll still be here when you get back.” At Richard’s frown, Avery scoffed and added, “Where will I go?”

Richard broke eye contact and mumbled, “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

Avery reached out and framed his face with her hands. She lifted his face until he re-made eye contact with her. “I promise I won’t abandon you.” She kissed Richard’s forehead, both cheeks, his nose, and then his lips. "You haven't abandoned me. I will not abandon you." She kissed him again, this time with a little more force.

Richard leaned back and pulled Avery on top of him. His hands found purchase on her waist and she wrapped her legs tightly around his waist. She began trailing kissed down Richard's neck and he let his hands drift downwards to grab handfuls of her ass. They sighed and moaned into each other's ears as they rutted against each other, savoring the friction. No longer able to bear the ache in his groin, Richard stood up and swiftly strode to the bedroom with Avery still wrapped around him.

The two tumbled into the sheets together; they each fulfilled something they had been craving for some time.


	24. Escalation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... this chapter was a lot harder to write than I expected, especially having been away from the story for so long. But eventually I'll get to the end!  
> Thanks for sticking with me this far! I hope it doesn't disappoint.

Richard woke up feeling content and satisfied. His entire body felt relaxed, only in the way a body could after several rounds of aggressive, energetic sex. He remembered the feel of her firm muscles underneath soft skin, the low moans of pleasure, the tantalizing build-up and release. His body was covered in a thin layer of dried sweat, but he didn’t care.

His arm was numb, but he felt it was a very small price to pay for the comfort of the woman curled on her side towards him. At some point during the night she had moved away from him, but he reached out to her and pulled her back in. Richard noticed that she still frowned in her sleep, but there was something more relaxed about her. Richard gently tucked her hair behind her ear. He let himself trace the contours of her body with his fingertips, enjoying the warmth of her skin.

Richard traced all of her scars; some looked to be burns and some looked to be stab marks. _Her body is a collection of violent stories. Ones that I will never know._ As Richard traced each rib from her spine to her midaxillary line, Dan stirred and looked up at Richard. He smiled back at her before leaning his head down to kiss her softly on the lips. “Good afternoon,” he whispered.

“And to you, too,” she replied.

They watched each other for a few minutes, enjoying the quiet and the early afternoon sun.

The moment was ruined by Richard’s stomach growling. “I’m starving,” he admitted. “How would you like another cold tin of beans for lunch?”

Dan chuckled. “Hello, starving. I’m Avery.” She playfully offered her hand to shake and Richard just rolled his eyes in response. “And beans sound great.”

“I’m glad to know that you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

Dan rolled away from Richard and climbed out of bed. They both laughed at the sound of their bodies unsticking to each other and to the sheets.

Richard followed Dan into the shower. He stood behind her, running his hands down her thighs and grabbing at the firm muscles. He pulled her back towards him, so that she could feel his half-erection and know his intentions. Dan looked up at him over her shoulder and said, “Not now. I’d really like to get things done and got home. Jason is waiting for me.”

The thought to display his masculine dominance crossed his mind. Richard was momentarily possessed by the desire to fuck Dan from behind, with her pressed against the cold tiles of the shower, just to prove that he was the one that mattered. Not Jason. But Richard took a step back, his erection already deflated.

Dan, sensing Richard’s disappointment, said, “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I know…”

An awkward silence settled over them as they actually went about the motions of showering. But Richard soon recovered from his funk and asked, “What are the scars on your inner thigh from? I noticed them last night and was curious, but my thoughts were mainly focused on something else.”

Dan laughed and stepped out of the shower. “Too busy thinking about the final destination to enjoy the journey?” She winked at Richard and tossed him a towel as he stepped out of the shower. “Car accident.” Richard had heard that excuse before and he knew she was lying. But he also knew that it meant knowing the truth wasn’t any of his business.

“How much more do you have to go through?” Richard asked, changing the subject.

“If I work straight through to tomorrow, I’ll be make my rendezvous with Eric’s brother. We can go home right after.”

“Where are you meeting him?”

“Vauxhall.”

“Vauxhall?”

Dan nodded. “Like his older brother, he is a special analyst for MI-6. And before you ask, that answer is no, you can’t come. My security clearance with them isn’t enough to cover for you, too.”

\---

“What else can I help you with?” Richard asked when he poked his head into the room set up as Eric’s office. Dan had assigned him the task cleaning up the main living spaces, like the kitchen and bathroom, and removing all of Eric’s personal things.

She looked up from the file she was reading. “Um…” she mumbled for several seconds. “Can you fold all of Eric’s clothes?”

Richard nodded. He noticed that even though she was cheerful earlier, once she had started back on the task of going through Eric’s stuff, she had retreated into herself and her melancholy. But he knew it was a natural part of the grieving process. _The Kubler-Ross stages of grief_. Richard surprised himself when he remembered that; it had been several years since he filmed that psychological thriller and he hadn’t thought about it since. _Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. I wonder what she would bargain for his life back? And what kind of anger she has under that controlled exterior._

“Sorry what?” Richard embarrassedly said. In thinking about Dan’s grief, he missed what she had said.

“I said if you find anything you want, feel free to take it.” She offered Richard a weak smile. “I think Bonesaw would prefer that, as opposed to his things ending up in storage collecting dust for the next decade.”

\---

“Are you sure the next guy will eat all this canned food?” Richard asked. He forced Dan to take a short break for dinner, which consisted of more canned soup and beans.

Dan gingerly took a sip of her soup before nodding. “The next officer will eat it. It doesn’t good bad, which is convenient for when they have to take extended trips.”

“Speaking of which, you haven’t been eating.” Dan’s hand, with a spoonful of soup, stopped and hovered in midair for a moment in a silence question of, “Then what exactly am I doing right now?” Richard shook his head and replied, “You used to eat my weight in food for lunch. I know you’re not feeling well, but this is a very dramatic decrease.”

“I need a few more days and a handful of cigarettes.”

“You smoke?”

Dan shook her head. “No. But they say it helps.” She shrugged and leaned back in her chair. “Bonesaw used to, like a fucking chimney.”

Richard wasn’t sure how to respond to the comment, so he changed the subject. I reached in his pocket and pulled out a shiny, gold ring. He held it out in his palm to Dan. “I found this in a suit pocket. It seemed really important, so I saved it for you.”

A small smile crept over Dan’s lips as she took the signet ring from Richard. “It’s Bonesaw’s legacy gift.”

“Legacy gift?”

Dan slipped the ring, normally worm on the fifth finger, on her index finger and took a good look at it. The engraving on the ring was that of two lions reared on their hind legs with crossed swords; there was also a letter E in the upper right corner. “Bonesaw and his brother are legacy agents. It means that their family has been with MI-6 for at least two generations. Their father worked there, and his father as well.”

She handed the ring back to Richard. “Keep it if you want it. Neither I nor the brother want it. We find more value in some of Bonesaw’s other personal equipment.”

\---

Avery played with Eric’s lighter as she waited for Michael to meet her. The lighter was a stainless steel Zippo with the image of a skeletal hand wielding a bone saw engraved on the front. The lighter was worn out from years of use and abuse, with deep scratches all over, but Avery decided to keep it out of sentiment.

Avery pushed off from the pillar and stood up straight when she heard a pair of Oxfords clicking on the cobblestone street behind her. She waited for Michael to stop in front of her before addressing him. She motioned at the box at her feet, which was filled with paperwork and a laptop. Michael lifted the box and Avery followed him inside the MI-6 headquarters.

They settled in Michael’s office. “What’s next for you, Ghostrider?” he asked.

“Joshua McCourt.” Avery took a sip of the tea Michael had offered her. “I know he has something to do with Eric’s assassination,” Avery said pointedly. “I’m going to hunt him down and slowly bleed him to death. And to laugh in his face the entire time.”

“That’s a bit much?”

“Don’t want to join me?” She asked pointedly as her frown deepened a little. _You’re taking this surprisingly well._

“I didn’t say that. But it very well could be different, considering you and my brother were a lot closer than he and I were.” _Don’t mistake me. Just because I’m not on the war path doesn’t mean I’m not hurting._ Michael shrugged.

“He’s also killed more people on my side,” Avery added. _I’ve already two of my closest friends to that man. Now it’s time for him to pay._

Michael nodded, acknowledging that fact. “How do you plan on finding McCourt? Through Hunters?”

“It’s better if you don’t know the details.” Michael heard the dismissal in Avery’s tone; he knew that Avery found his lack of enthusiasm off-putting and didn’t want any risk of him convincing her to change her plans.

“I want to help you,” Michael mumbled as he looked down at his hands. When he met Avery’s eyes a minute later, there was a hardness to them that wasn’t there before. “Let me help you. Between The Circus and The Shadow Factory, there’s nothing we can’t do.”

Avery shook her head. “Dr. Hunters stays with me. It’s always been that way and will continue to be that way.” She leaned forward and placed her hand on Michael’s wrist in a comforting gesture. “Thank you for the offer, though.”

Michael covered her hand with his. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” She gave Michael a gentle squeeze.

“I’m frustrated that he didn’t tell me what was going on. That there’s nothing I can do to help.”

“Even though he and I were very close, you have to know that Eric loved you dearly. You are his little brother. Like you said, these people are dangerous. Maybe it was his way of protecting you where he could.”

“I know,” Michael replied with a heavy sigh. The sigh was partly in resignation that Avery wouldn’t give him the information he wanted willingly and partly because listening to Avery talk about how much Eric loved him compounded the guilt he felt in his stomach.

“Sometimes it’s worth repeating.” Avery stood up to leave. Her hand subconsciously reached back into her pocket to fiddle with Eric's lighter; Aver realized that she had been fingering it for most of their meeting. "Do you want this?" she asked, offering Eric's lighter to Michael.

Michael shook his head, declining the gift. “I still have all the things he left at my house. I don’t think I need any more mementos of what I’ve lost.”

\---

A feeling of unease descended on Avery when she pulled up to the runway. Like before, Mara was waiting for them, but unlike before there were also four Range Rovers with tinted black windows parked halfway between the plane and the hangar. Shaking her head, she figured that the feeling was just the stress of the past few days catching up back up to her.

"Richard," she said carefully as she took the car out of gear and let it drift towards their final destination, "stay in the car."

A shiver ran down Richard's spine. "Is everything okay?" Avery not to answer the question because she didn't know herself. Richard's hands started to sweat when he saw Avery slip the Glock into her left jacket pocket and her remained in that same pocket when she got out of the car.

Avery handed over the bag of equipment that Mara had given her when they first arrived in London. "Thankfully, we didn't have to use any of it," Avery said.

Avery saw the gun as it slipped down from under Mara's sleeve in her hand. Avery cursed herself for speaking too soon and reflexively ducked and took a side step to get out of Mara's direct line of sight. Coming back up, Avery executed a move to slap Mara's gun out of her hand. Avery then caught the gun with one hand, pulled the Glock out with her other hand, and started firing at the the men emerging from the Range Rovers. She figured the chances of Mara having another gun hiding up her sleeve were slim, while the guards had already drawn their weapons.

"Get on the plane!" she yelled at Richard. "Move!"

Richard was jolted out of his stunned surprise at the sound of Avery's voice. He flung the car door open, covered his head with his arms, stooped over, and ran as fast as he could to the plane. As he scrambled up the stairs, he heard Avery cry out in pain as Mara had dug her nails into Avery's wounded shoulder. Richard reflexively pivoted to run to Avery's aid, but a set of strong arms threw him back into the cabin of the plane. Richard didn't recognize Myles.

Myles took a position at the open jet door, firing a rifle at the remainder of Mara's team. Avery grappled with Mara on the ground; even though Avery was more severely wounded, she had the advantage because she didn't care if Mara survived the fight. Avery grabbed at her Glock, which was lying just at the edge of her fingertips. Avery managed to get her finger around the trigger and aimed at Mara, but Mara quickly stabbed the heel of her shoe into Avery's elbow. Due to the pain shooting down her arm, Avery couldn't help to flex her finger, pulled the trigger, and shot herself in the thigh.

Mara let out an, "Oh shit," at the same time Avery whined, "Fuuuuuuck." For a few seconds, Mara panicked about what Joshua McCourt was going to do to her when he found out what she did to Avery. Avery took advantage of those few seconds to shoot Mara in the knee. Avery struggled to her feet and limped her way to the jet. 

However, Mara was more terrified of what Joshua would do to her when he found out that Avery got away than what he would do to her just for injuring Avery. Grabbing her gun, Mara aimed and shot Avery just a little higher on the thigh, just beneath the hip.

While the two women had been fighting, Myles had run towards them. He caught Avery as she fell forward from the second gunshot wound. He roughly threw Avery over his shoulders, ignoring her protests at the indignity of the position, and ran back to the jet. Richard was once again jolted out of his stunned silence when Myles deposited a heavily bleeding Avery next to him. She crawled a few inches towards the first aid kit, but the pain was so overwhelming she could only lie on the ground instead.

"Put pressure on the wounds!" Myles shouted from the cockpit as he rapidly punched the start-up sequence for the jet. "If the gauze soaks through, just add more; don't remove any. And keep her awake!"

Despite the innate knowledge that the jet was bulletproof and outfitted with the latest military technology, and with all their adversaries currently incapacitated, Richard still had a sense that they wouldn’t make it out of the UK alive. With one shaking hand, he cupped the side of Avery’s face and stroked her cheek with his thumb. “Stay with me, Ghostrider,” he said. Avery peered up at him, slightly confused; it was the first time Richard had ever called her that. “You've only been shot.” He laughed awkwardly. _As if any gunshot wound is not a big deal. And she has two for fuck's sake!_

Avery groaned and Richard leaned forward to plant a kiss on her forehead. “Hey, hey. We’re getting you to safety. But you have to stay here with me. Don’t fall asleep.”

Richard kept talking to Avery, nudging her somewhat aggressively when he noticed her starting to drift off. He overheard Myles saying something about landing within the hour at a base in Berlin, Germany. “We’re going to Germany,” Richard said to Avery.

Myles emerged from the cockpit and started treating Avery. He applied a tourniquet to Avery's leg and dressed the wounds. He hooked up an IV line and pushed morphine into Avery’s system. He then draped a shock blanket over Avery.

There was an unsettling familiarity about the situation, to when Avery was stabbed in the shoulder by a screwdriver less than a month ago. Richard suddenly recognized the man. “Myles?”

“Yeah?” Myles replied, without pausing in his work.

“Is she going to live?”

Myles laughed. “If she doesn’t, the team will personally drag her back from Hell.”

"Does she always get hurt this much?" Richard recalled all the scars he found on her body yesterday afternoon.

"You tell me. I just started working with her."

\---

“YOU DID WHAT?” Joshua screamed at the top of his lungs when the news about Avery’s injury was broken to him.

Mara swallowed nervously. “In our attempt to acquire the bait, we accidentally shot Avery in the hip."

"HOW FUCKING STUPID ARE YOU?" Joshua screamed. "Not only did you damage my prize, but..." He paced back and forth, doing his best to regain control of his temper. He failed to do so. "EXCEPT YOU WERE SO FUCKING STUPID THAT YOU TIPPED HER OFF THAT MI-6 RESOURCES ARE INVOLVED."

“We weren’t expecting them to leave so quickly; even Michael thought it would take them a few more days to clean out the apartment. We had to scramble.”

Michael pulled his gun from his hip holster and shot Mara in the other knee. She fell to the ground moaning in pain. “Your incompetency irritates me,” he said coldly. The reason for sending Eric to the Other Side was to cover up MI-6's involvement and Mara had defeated that exact purpose. The guilt and anger Michael felt had bubbled to the surface after talking with Avery; now it festered. Whatever semblance of humanity Michael had was gone.

Joshua stopped pacing and raised an eyebrow at Michael. He sensed the change in the young man. “Well,” Joshua said, “at least you don't have to deal with kidnapping a British citizen on British soil. No family from MI-5 need be shot. Or GCHQ.”

Michael glared back at Joshua, knowing Joshua was making a reference to the cousins the Harrisons had in those branches. “Shame. I loved them much less than my late brother.”


	25. Injured Again

Avery woke up feeling like she couldn’t breathe. It felt like there was something holding her chest down, not allowing her to inhale. After the initial wave of panic, she willed herself to take slower breaths and remain calm. The weight on her chest was actually Richard’s head lying on her upper abdomen, just where the rib cage ended. Richard was wedged into the small space on the side of her bed of her good hip, curled towards her, sleeping. Avery was slightly impressed that he fit into that space and couldn’t imagine how uncomfortable it must be.

She was glad that nothing hurt except her thigh, which was to be expected considering she had just been shot there. She closed her eyes and tried to quell the massive frustration building up in her chest; she was not pleased this was her second hospital visit that month. Avery remembered the fire fight at the airport. And Richard carrying her into the jet. She remembered watching Richard’s lips move, but not hearing the words, as he begged her not to die.

When she opened her eyes again, Avery slowly lifted a tired arm to put her hand on Richard's head. She gently ran her hand through his hair. “Richard,” she said in a low, hoarse voice. She cleared her dry throat as best she could. “Richard,” she said again.

Richard lifted his head to look at her with bleary eyes. “Hey…” he said. “Welcome back.” Richard suddenly snapped into an upright seated position. He stared straight into her eyes, checking that they were as sharp as ever. Relief washed over Richard’s features; he began to tear up.

Avery held her arms out and Richard leaned forward to rest his forehead against her shoulder. “I’m here,” she said softly. As she hugged him, she rubbed circles into the back of his neck with one hand. “I'm sorry about the TARRFU."

"Things are really, really fucked up," Avery chuckled when she felt Richard turn his head to look at her. He had gotten better with the acronyms, but there were a few that he still didn't know. "I think of it as one extra step beyond SNAFU, on the same level of FUBAR. But FUBAR is more like when you or someone on your team does something stupid; TARRFU is when shit happens to you." Richard snorted at the explanation, but didn't say anything.

After a few minutes, Avery asked, “Are you hurt?” He shook his head. “Good.” She paused. “Myles?”

“He’s in a secret meeting with Jason and another, older gentleman. They’ve been arguing about something since they got here.” Richard extracted himself from the bed and grabbed his mobile phone. “I’ll text Myles you’re awake. They'e all been anxious, too.”

\---

Jason sighed and carded a hand through his hair. After two days of waiting around at the hospital, of waiting for Avery to regain consciousness following her 12-hour intensive surgery, his nerves were starting to fray. He paced up and down the small conference room. Kevin sat at the head of the conference table in the room, his arms folded across his chest. Myles sat in the seat to Kevin’s right, balancing his chair on its back two legs, and stared out the window.

Jason’s frown deepened. “It’s unlike Jester to pull such a rash move. I don’t know what could motivate him that much.”

Kevin rested his forearms of the edge of the table, with his hands clasped together. “Maybe they think Ghostrrider gained intel. Bonesaw them enough on edge that they assassinated him; it’s not unreasonable to think that Bonesaw left something for Ghostrider given their close relationship.”

“Which also brings us to the problem of MI-6 involvement,” Jason sighed. “And this serves to confirm someone in the Circus is covering for Jester. But who in MI-6? And why? They don't have anything to gain from working with Jester, except to piss us off.”

“I think it was has to do with that woman,” Myles said. “I’d never seen her before and she was never mentioned in all the files; she might be a baby agent.”

“It’s also unlike Jester to hire novices.”

“But not unreasonable considering we’ve knocked off a few of his agents recently.”

“We have to adjust our strategy, since we’re stuck and since Ghostrider is incapacitated for the next few months,” Jason commented flatly. The three men shared a look. _She’s going to spit Hell fire about that latter fact_.

“I think we should put the operation on hold.” Myles shrugged. “We have to let her recover because if anyone’s boots are to be stomping around, they have to be hers. Also, it burns the time she has to serve with Hollywood, which removes him as a complication.”

“Fair enough.”

Myles dropped his chair back down on all fours. “Ghostrider is awake,” he said, looking up from his phone. He rose to his feet and stretched his back, his arms reaching high into the air. “Let’s go.”

“How do you know?” Kevin asked.

“Because Hollywood just texted me.” Myles gave Kevin a look that indicated Kevin asked a question with a very obvious answer.

Kevin shared a look with Jason. _Smart ass._

_Well, you did pick him for the team. It’s good he’s finally settling into the family, though._

_Just make sure he doesn’t get too cocky._

\---

“You lucky bitch, Ghostrider,” Jason said as he shoved the sliding door open and entered the room. Kevin and Myles flanked Jason. A wide grin spread across Avery’s face and Jason smiled back at her. “But just because I’m smiling,” Jason said sourly, “it doesn’t mean I’m not very pissed off with you.”

"Fuck off," Avery replied. "Alleycat, Falcon." She gave a quick two-fingered salute to the two men before leaning in towards Richard, who was sitting on the edge of her bed. "Kevin McAllister, codename Alleycat, is my boss," Avery whispered into his ear.

"McAllister? As in relation to Jason?"

"Uncle."

Jason turned towards Richard. “We need a few minutes with Avery. Get some coffee or something.”

Richard knew a dismissal when he heard one; without any protest, he got up and left the room. He closed the door behind him.

“What happened?” Avery asked. “Where am I?”

“You were shot in the left leg. We’re at the base in Germany.”

“I know I was shot.”

Jason offered her a water bottle and Avery greedily guzzled it down.

“Shot twice in the femur; complete fracture and we had to do ORIF. Two plates, two rods. You’ll be out for nine weeks with therapy, might have a limp. And a wicked scar."

Avery groaned. “Nine weeks... Your estimate? Or the surgeon's?"

"Surgeon."

“You've been drifting in and out for two days, but first time you’re fully awake.”

"And no, you didn't say anything scandalous," Myles piped in. "Cried a lot about Bonesaw."

Avery nodded. “How are all of you?”

The three men shrugged. “Better than you," Jason replied.

“Hollywood?”

“We’ve been able to maintain our cover. He’s just about had 1,000 aneurysms, but he’s stable. Hasn’t left your side since we brought you in.”

“Ah,” Avery hummed. "What now?"

"You're put on medical leave and we lie low," Kevin said.

Avery wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, "JESTER IS STILL OUT THERE. THE CIRCUS IS HELPING HIM. HE'S GAINING GROUND AND I'M SUPPOSED TO FUCKING LIE STILL? YOU THREE ARE A SHIT TEAM." but she knew they were right. She knew that there was a lot they didn't know and that she was in no condition to go running around, chasing him. "Fuck," she hissed to no one in particular.

"You're going to love this next bit, then, too," Myles said. Avery glared at him. "We've decided that Hollywood is moving in with you. You need someone to help you do basic, daily tasks and to help you get around; Hollywood volunteered." Myles shrugged. "The two of get along fantastic, so we consented."

"Fucking fuck." Avery wasn't opposed to the idea of Richard staying with her. If she were feeling herself she would have to admit that she was a little bit excited about the idea. But she was too frustrated with the situation in the moment to be a little bit excited.

\---

 _With exception to inevitable variation, I can literally predict what Dan's doing and exactly when she's doing it_ , Richard mused as he reviewed his timeline of Dan's day-to-day operations.  _And I thought I was a creature of_ _habit._ On the first day of the internship, when Richard and Dan had made jokes about moving together, Richard didn’t think that it would actually happen. Let alone because Dan was injured and it was deemed appropriate by her boss. Richard almost forgot that Dan was some kind of Mission: Impossible agent due to the feeling of normalcy for the past two and a half weeks.

_2AM goes to bed_

_6AM rises_

_7AM breakfast of scrambled eggs smothered with ketchup, two cups of tea, eats in front of her laptop_

_7:30AM prepare to head out_

_8AM we study/work in her dining room instead of going to DARPA; currently being taught mathematics, physics, and computer programming; feels pretty much the same, except in a different location_

_Every other day Connie comes by to take Dan to rehabilitation therapy (Connie says Dan is getting better faster than expected through sheer force of will); combat training with Jason and Sam once a week_

_4PM when we would go home; sometimes Clive stops by_

_5:30-7PM quick naps, if schedule permits_

_7:30PM dinner; says she normally cooks on Sundays for the entire week, but because she's injured we mostly get take-out because I am a terrible cook_

_8-9PM personal time_

_9PM-2AM study/work some more_  

Richard closed his notebook, sandwiching his finger on the page, and stared off into space.  _Only one more week and a half of this... Then I'm straight into filming. I have to admit, I'm going to miss this. I'm really going to miss Dan's moodiness and witty comments and intensity. And the color of her eyes and the way she smells._ He sighed heavily.  _I've fallen in love with her and want to stay with her... But I'm not sure she returns the sentiment. I suppose I'll until the last few days before bringing it up. If she says yes, then things will be great. If she says no, then things won't be too awkward for too long._

\---

Richard was just about to leave the house to go to a press conference when he heard a crashing noise and Dan give a shout. Richard bolted down the hall and pushed open her bedroom door. Dan was lying on the ground, grumbling profanities at her weak leg. Based on the way she was sprawled on the ground, Richard figured that her laptop had slid off her lap and she fell out of bed when she leaned over to pick it up. Richard scooped Dan into his arms and helped her sit on the edge bed. He saw the bottle of pain medication on her nightstand; he popped the lid and dumped two pills into her hand. He also handed her the water bottle that was also on the nightstand.

“Don’t try getting up,” Richard said. “I’ll bring you some tea.”

“I don’t need fucking tea,” Dan snapped back, still very upset.

“Tea always helps.” Richard left to make tea, giving Dan some space to cry. She never said anything to him about it, but he knew how exasperated she was about being incapacitated. Even though Connie told him that Dan was making incredibly rapid progress, it still wasn't fast enough for her. It hindered her ability to her job and to be an independent person, and he know much those two things meant to her. When Richard returned with a steaming mug of tea, Dan had calmed down. He also brought the electric heating pad from the living room, which helped relieve some of the cramping in her muscles.

“Thank you,” Dan said, taking the warm mug from his hands. “I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

Richard smiled softly. He was internally amused and pleased at how domestic they had become over the past few days of living together. “I know you didn’t mean it.” He helped Dan resettle into bed and wrapped the heating pad around her leg. He turned it on to a low heat. "Feels better?"

Dan nodded. “You better get to your press conference,” she added.

Richard shrugged in response. “I can be late. They can't start without me.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and took one of Dan’s hands in his. “Anything else I can do for you?”

Dan reached over and adjusted Richard’s tie and smoothed out the lapels of his jacket. He blushed slightly from the intimacy of the action; they had returned to their distant, sexually-tense relationship after leaving London. “Just have fun,” Dan said. "And try to use those pre-scripted answers."

He tapped his temple. “They're up here. Besides, the reporters are going to ask me the same questions they always have. Nothing I can't handle.” They both chuckled.

“But get to it! I will literally still be here, in this same spot, when you get back.”

\---

When Richard came home, Dan was already asleep. She was lying on her good side, her laptop still powered on and on the mattress next to her. The light was also still on. _She must have fallen asleep before telling Hien to turn it off._ Richard chuckled to himself when he saw her and wondered how many times she’d fallen asleep like that before, if working herself into exhaustion was a normal thing for her. He went about tucking Dan in as gently and quietly as possible.

At some time in the middle of the night, Richard was awakened by Dan moaning. Thinking she had fallen out of bed again or she was in an insurmountable amount of pain, Richard went to her side. She was fighting something in her sleep and making all sorts of noises. Richard slid into bed and wrapped his arms around Dan. “It’s okay. It’s all okay,” he said, holding Dan to him.

Dan woke up as soon as he touched her. In a state of panic, she hyperventilated and struggled against Richard. She swung hard and her fist solidly connected with Richard’s eye. Her groaned in pain, but didn’t let go. “It’s just me, love,” he said in a calm voice. “You were having a nightmare. You’re okay. You're okay.”

Dan took a few deep breaths, calming down. “Yeah…” she breathed. The images of Jester standing over her and ready to hack off all her limbs still lingered in her brain. Dan forced her muscles to relax, but Richard still didn’t let go of her. “Well, then… Good night.”

“Goodnight,” Richard replied, a slight tone of concern in his voice. He rolled out of bed, but as soon as he stood up he turned back to Dan. “Do you want me to stay here?”

“No. Thank you for offering, though.”

“Are you sure?”

The word “no” was on the tip of her tongue again, but this time Dan hesitated for a moment. “Sit with me for a little while?”

“Of course.”

Dan rolled back on her side and Richard spooned her. She was curled tightly in a ball, enough so that the top of her head was under his chin. He wrapped an arm protectively around her waist and she held his hand.

Richard stayed with her until he thought she had fallen back asleep. As he moved to go back to his own room, Dan said very quietly, “Please don’t go.” It was so quiet that Richard thought that maybe he was imaging her saying those words. But Dan tightened her grip on his hand.

 


	26. The Truth Comes Out

_I hope she likes this..._  Richard thought as he lit the candles on the dining table. While Dan was taking her daily nap, he decided to set the table in a classically elegant way and to add some color to Dan's bleak and totally utilitarian apartment. Despite having a rather large living space, two bedrooms and two bathrooms, everything was either a shade of gray, brown, or white.

"What's this?" Dan asked when she limped her way into the dining room fifteen minutes later. Even though she was up to 85% back to normal functioning ability, she was still a little stiff in the hip just after waking up.

"I thought it would be nice," Richard said shyly. "You now, to celebrate the start of my last week here. I, uh, made some of your favorite foods in an attempt to say thank you for such a wonderful experience. Not only were you a great character study, you increased my intellectual prowess." Richard pulled out her seat for her and Dan settled in it.

“You’re welcome. It’s been fun.”

Richard served Dan like the princess he thought she deserved to be and they made small talk over dinner. Dan nibbled on some chocolate covered pretzels for desert and listened to Richard share some of his film schedule. “I’m going to miss this. Going to miss you…” Richard moistened his lips and then bit his lower lip.

“Right back at you. You’re… different from my normal crowd. It’s nice.”

“In a good way?”

She gave him a confirmatory nod. “In a good way.”

They settled into a comfortable silence. “I wanted to ask you…” Richard started, but he was interrupted by Dan’s phone ringing.

“Hold that thought,” Dan said. She got to her feet and dashed into the other room to grab it. “Talk to me, Vortex.” Richard’s heart sank into his stomach when he saw the subtle change in expression in Dan’s facial expression. She was excited to talk to Jason, not just happy to hear good news. “That’s fucking fantastic. Is Falcon there?” He wondered if he overestimated how much she cared for him. “Well, give him my love. What a fucking badass.” When she sat back down at the table, she was wearing a smile she hadn’t been wearing before. “What did you want to say?”

Richard shook his head. The moment had passed. “To be honest, I don’t really remember. It’ll come back to me.”

\---

Richard peered at his phone, slightly confused. He had a policy of not answering calls from unknown numbers, but something in his gut told him he needed to answer it. Especially because Dan’s phone had been ringing just seconds earlier, he figured it might be someone important. “Hello?” Richard answered.

“Hello, Armitage. Is Ghostrider around?” a British voice responded.

 _So it is one of Dan’s friends._ “Who is this?” Richard replied. He had enough training to know not to give anything away by answering either yes or no to the question; it would mean that Richard knew where Dan was.

“Oh, sorry,” the voice said with a light chuckle. “This is Bonecrusher. We met briefly at a funeral a little less than a month ago.”

 _I think I remember meeting him, but I’m not sure. But I don’t know very many of Dan’s friends in general... Oh! He’s the brother of the agent who was killed._ “How did you get my phone number?”

“I work for MI-6. I have everyone’s phone number.”

“Right.”

“Is Ghostrider around?”

“She’s with Vortex; won’t be back for about another hour or so.”

“Do you think you can do me a favor? It’s rather urgent.”

“Sure.”

“Ghostrider was helping us locate a file. Do you mind looking around her apartment for it?”

Something felt wrong to Richard. “I don’t know… I don’t think I should be snooping around her apartment.”

“It’s fine; you’re not snooping. Leaving military intelligence out in the open is not standard practice.”

“It might be stashed away behind a false wall panel. My brother instilled a love of those in her,” Bonecrusher supplied. “Try her bathroom. Most people hide their prized possession in their bedroom, but Ghostrider is too clever for that. She’d want it close still, though, so most likely the master bathroom.”

“It might take me a while… Is there a number I can call you back at?”

“You can put the phone down; I’ll wait on the line.”

Richard looked around and ran his hands along the walls, trying to feel for a slight crack that could be a false panel. He popped open the side mirror to reveal a medicine cabinet behind it. He stared at the contents for a moment. _Something’s different about this, but I don’t know what. It’s stocked with all the things you would expect to find… But…_

 _It’s characteristically messier._ Richard was about to reach out to remove the contents and shelves, but caught himself. _This is a trap. There is no such thing as “uncharacteristically messy” to Dan. She specifically set the things to look this way._ Richard stared at the set-up of the items for several minutes, memorizing where things went and their orientation.

He wasn’t satisfied with his memory skills, but he hit a mental block. He removed everything and pressed lightly on the back wall.

There was a small pop and the panel shifted enough to that it could be removed. Richard pulled out the box on top; he removed the lid and was surprised to see if filled with all sorts of Dan’s personal affects.  

 _What the fuck?_ _What is all of this?_

“Any luck?” Bonesaw asked.

Ricahrd snapped back to reality. He put the lid back on the box and placed it next to the sink, for later investigation. Richard felt around along the sides of the secret vault; his fingers brushed against a black envelope that was propped flush against the side wall by a box of what he suspected was special ammunition. _Clever. The envelope blends in with the wall._  “I think I found something.” Richard removed the envelope and pulled out the forest green folder Bonecrusher was looking for.

“What’s the file ID?”

“There are two labels… JESTER and BH09ANJM238. Does that sound right?”

“Perfect. Thank you.”

“Anything else?”

“Nope.”

“Should I let Ghostrider know you called?”

“Nope; I got what I needed from her. Thanks for your help.” The line disconnected before Richard could ask any more questions. Richard was too curious by what he had found inside the first box to really notice how odd he felt about what he just did for Bonesaw.

He took a seat on the floor, his back pressed against the cabinets under the sink, and opened the box in his lap. There were four passports: Avery Nguyen, Katerina Nazareno, Polly Gregors, and Thu Huynh. As Richard looked at the photos in each of the passports, he realized that they were all Dan, except in various disguises. This didn’t particularly surprise Richard because he knew that she had assumed false identities before when traveling to protect her weapons research.

Then he found photos of Dan when she was child. There was a photo of a very young girl with her parents. _They must be Dan’s parents. She must have been four or five when they took these photos… Where are they? It looks like Vietnam._ There was another photo of a slightly older young girl with a different set of parents. _And they must be her adoptive parents? Then what happened to her actual parents?_

Then Richard found Dan’s first PhD dissertation, on bomb-diffusion EMP grenades, completed at the University of Texas - Austin. The photo paperclipped to the first page of the dissertation was definitely of Dan, but the name on the dissertation wasn’t the same. _When did she change her name? Why did she change her name?_

Then Richard found some more photos of Dan with Jason, Clive, and Eric. Like with the other photos he had found of her, Dan looked happier and healthier than she did currently.

Richard’s hands started shaking when he found the reason why Dan had changed her name. At the bottom of the box was an official statement from the CIA congratulating her for successfully completing her field training. The document was signed by Kevin McAllister. _Kevin McAllister. As in Jason’s uncle._

Richard felt like he was going to retch; he covered his mouth with his hand and tried not to be sick. He hastily piled everything back into the box and shoved it back where it belonged. Richard paced back and forth in the bathroom, not sure what to do with his new found knowledge. _She hadn’t necessarily lied to me, but she didn’t tell me the whole truth. Holy fuck, she’s a legitimate spy._ Richard shook his head. _You always had your suspicions. Can you really fault her for being the way she is? It explains so much about her._

Richard’s eyes fell on the file that Bonecrusher was interested in. Before he could stop himself, he opened and it and began reading.

\---

“Ghostrider, we have a very serious problem,” Jason said, looking up from his phone.

“What is it?” Avery asked. She put her feet back on the ground and sat up in her chair.

“Hollywood.” Jason handed his phone over to Avery with a grim expression on his face. She almost crushed the device in her hand. Because Avery had left her own phone back at her apartment, Hien and sent video feed of Richard breaking into her private safe to Jason. “What are you going to do?” Jason asked.

“Massive damage control. I don’t know what prompted this and I’m certain he’s not a double agent.” She quickly got to her feet and headed towards the door. “I’ll keep you posted.”

“Unit GV19 is solid.” _I’ll do whatever it is you ask of me._

_\---_

 

“Something wrong?” she asked when she walked into her apartment. She decided to play it naïve and see if Richard would willingly confess his crimes. Richard was sitting at the table with his notebook and script open in front of him, leaned back in his chair, clicking his pen as he tried to put words to his thoughts. There was nothing usual about what he was doing, but there was palpable discomfort in the air.

“Huh?” Richard looked up at her. “No,” he lied. After discovering the woman he spent the past eight weeks working with really wasn’t the woman he thought she was, there was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Richard felt that it was better to pretend to not know anything than it was to confront her.

“Talk to me, Hollywood.” She took a seat next to Richard.

“Oh! That reminds me. Your friend from MI-6 called.”

“Which one?”

“Bonecrusher.”

“And?”

“That’s all.”

“He didn’t say why he called?”

“No.”

She waited for a few minutes, staring at Richard. A shiver ran down his back, but he didn’t succumb to the pressure. She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder; she leaned into his personal space and whispered. “For an actor, you’re a shit liar. Did you really think that I wouldn’t know?” Underneath the tone of betrayal was one of sadness. She sighed. “What do you want to know?” she asked slowly.

“Everything.”

“There’s over a decade to talk about. Be more specific.”

“What’s your name?”

“Dr. Avery Nguyen, PhD, PhD.”

“Your real name.”

“Classified.”

Richard waited to see if Avery would continue, but she simply stared back at him. He was surprised by her general lack of hostility; this was the exact opposite of how she normally reacted to things. “When did you become Avery?”

“When I joined the CIA. After I completed my first PhD on hand-held, bomb-diffusing EMP grenades, I met and was recruited to the CIA by Jason McAllister, AKA Vortex. I changed my name, and did my field training at the same time as my second PhD. But you already knew that.”

“How does that scar relate?”

“Which one?”

“The one on your shoulder.”

“During my training with Vortex, I created Operation Jester. Jester is the codename for an Egyptian arms dealer name Joshua McCourt that the CIA wanted to stop, and who also had a little too much interest in EMP. We saw the threat from Jester and recruited Dr. Clive Winslett out of academia to DARPA.

“A year later I graduated with my PhD, then I joined DARPA as his babysitter. We also brought in Sarah Chesteen, AKA Snowfall, the woman Clive would fall in love with and marry, and Dr. Benjamin Hunters. We traveled around for a few years, doing EMP weapon-related research. Jester started to get restless again; Alleycat deployed me to Palestine with Vortex and Snowfall. That, you would have learned from reading the file.

“What you didn’t read in the file was that Palestine went to Hell in a handbasket. The details are messy, but essentially Vortex had no choice, but to sell me out in order to protect the Primer Minister. They captured and tortured me for four months. They killed Snowfall. Vortex came back for me.

“After that, I’ve been letting Alleycat run Operation Jester and I’ve been working quietly at DARPA with Winters.” She took a few deep breaths.

“Is that what happened to you and Jason?”

“Really? That’s what you want to know?” Avery folded her hands in her lap. “We didn’t survive Palestine. I changed and we didn’t make it.”

“Do you still love him?”

“That’s an oversimplified question. Yes, I love him because he is the person most integrated into who I am. No, I don’t love him because I know we will never work.”

“Why not?”

Avery sighed. “Because he sold me out to the Palestinians to save the operation. I was supposed to die, but he somehow got me back. Now I have to live with the knowledge that he’s capable of giving me up.”

Richard sat in silence for several minutes, processing all the new information. He still had a million and one questions about Operation Jester, but he knew that those questions should be saved for a different time. “And the scars on your leg?”

“First undercover operation as some gangster’s whore. Not related to Jester. The gangster progressively burned me, hoping that I would confess to selling secrets. Jason, who was also with me undercover… went mental and killed everyone.” Avery shrugged. “Alleycat put us on probation for eight months for breaking character, but I’m honestly quite glad Jason did.”

Richard sat in silence again. “You lied to me. This entire time. From the very beginning.”

“I never lied to you,” Avery replied.

“You didn’t tell me the truth.”

“What you know about me is true. I am an engineer with two PhDs. I work for the government, doing a variety of jobs.”

“You’re a CIA intelligence officer.”

“Yes, I’m a spook.”

Richard turned away from Avery. “I don’t believe it.” He had managed to stay calm and listen to what Avery had to say to him. But his composure cracked and he was filled with absolute rage.

Avery shook her head. “No, Richard. Deep down, from the very beginning, you always knew. You just chose not to believe it.” Richard stood up and turned to leave. “Go Hien, Lock 2.” All the doors and windows sealed shut. Richard spun to glare at Avery. “Now that you know my secrets, I can’t let you leave,” she said. “If you say and do something indiscreet... You may think of me as a character study, but my life hangs in the balance.” She drew a gun that was hidden under the table and Richard heard the familiar warm-up tonal sequence. “I’d rather you cooperate, but I will use force if I have to.”

Richard froze in place, realizing just how serious Avery was. “Have I just become I your captive?” In his voice was a sense of hurt, at the realization that despite how close they had become, she was still capable to killing him without hesitation. Then he barked a laugh at the irony that Jason had done the same to her.

“For the time being,” she replied. “It will take a day before I can have you debriefed and released back into the general public.” Avery headed towards her bedroom. “Storm about the apartment all you wish. I’ll keep to myself.”

\---

The next morning, Avery was already gone by the time Richard work up. “Good morning,” Hien said as soon as she detected Richard moving about the apartment. “Winters is on his way to collect you.”

The two men didn’t speak much as they drove to the DARPA campus, only exchanging pleasantries. Once they arrived at the campus, Clive wheeled a chair over to his desk and motioned for Richard to sit down. Richard sat and Clive leaned on the edge of his desk, with his arms folded over his chest. “You’re making the face.”

“The one your daughter makes when she’s upset?” Richard asked. Clive nodded. The two men watched each other in silence for a while. “Did you know?”

“Yes and no. I knew my wife was CIA; she was assigned to me when I worked on EMP weapons. Jason had started his job as liaison just around the same time. Five years later, Avery Nguyen was brought to DARPA. But I had met her a few times previously at academic conferences while she was still working on her PhD. What a spunky nut job she was then! She and I got into all sorts of trouble with the research we were doing, so Sarah was brought in by Avery five months later.

“The research I was doing was very lucrative and we had to go into hiding on a few occasions. But Dan… I never confirmed with her. I had my suspicions, but she was so different from Sarah that I wasn’t entirely sure. It wasn’t just their personalities, but the nature of their missions.

“Sarah did all the glorious things. Dan always came back with bruises and broken bones. She attributed it to being the Navy and her temper gets her into fights. But Sarah and Avery were already close friends from before. Sarah was a government analyst, advising the Cabinet on foreign threats. She also had some military training, but was never as tough as Avery. But Sarah was a people-person, she could make anyone smile.”

The plan worked as Richard had hoped; Clive rambled on once he started talking. Richard was also relieved that Clive's timeline events matched up with what Avery had told him the previous night. “Are you angry?”

Clive leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head; he stared up at the rafters of the building. “I’m angry that Sarah died and that my daughter will grow up without her mother. But I’m not angry that she did a job that gave her a sense of fulfillment. And I’m not angry at Jason and Dan. They’re the ones who protect me and I know that they do everything out of the goodness of their heart.”

Clive sighed and shifted so that his hands were propped on his knees. “Could you imagine how difficult it must be? To live every minute knowing that someone out there is actively trying to kill you? But you do it to protect those you love.” He took a deep breath. “I understand Dan and Jason, and I can’t be angry with them. Sometimes I wonder if it’s my fault that she was killed,” Clive continued. “I know I’m a wanted man for the knowledge I possess.”

\---

When Richard walked in, he immediately noticed that all of his bags were packed and waiting for him by the door. His notebooks were neatly stacked on the side table, all in chronological order. “What’s this?” he asked, confused, when he stepped past his things and into the living room.

Avery didn’t look up from her laptop. “I read through your notebooks.”

Richard’s words died in his mouth. He had worked on the exact wording to tell Avery that he had forgiven her and that he wanted to finish his internship with her at DARPA. _How dare she!_ He shouted in his mind. _Of all people she should understand privacy._

“Anyway, Connie approved the paperwork. You’ll be transferred to HQ later today, debriefed, and discharged.”

“What are you talking about?’ Richard growled out.

“There is no nobility is being a spy. For they are all cold-blooded liars, who manipulate others to achieve their own secretive and often unethical ends,” Avery quoted from Richard’s most recent entry, imitating Richard’s voice exactly. Avery huffed a laugh. “If that’s not a statement of distrust and hatred, then discharge me from the service.” She shrugged. “But I have to admit that your writing is poetic.” She could tell from his expression he was mortified and outraged at this breach of privacy. But she was so hurt by what Richard had written about her to care; she smothered the hurt with detached nastiness.

Richard opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to move his tongue despite all the words that were sitting on the tip of it. “Is that what you really think?” he finally managed to ask. When Avery’s expression didn’t change, Richard let out a heavy sigh. “You are so infuriating sometimes!” He bit his lip and couldn’t bring himself to look at her at the moment. After taking a few deep breaths, he said, “I was just about to tell you that I forgive you. I said those things last night when I was extremely confused and angry. I don't mean those words.”

“I don’t need to be forgiven.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Richard shouted. He clenched his fists and dropped his gaze again, trying to regain control of his temper. “I’m in so angry with you. But at the same time…” He took a deep breath. “But I can’t find it in myself to leave you.”

Avery waited silently for Richard to continue.

“If you’ve read all of that, then…” Richard took another deep breath and forced himself to meet Avery’s eyes. “Then you know that I love you.”

Avery dropped the eye contact first this time around. “No. Please don’t say that.”

“I can’t help myself.”

“No, you’re just confused and lonely.” She cleared her throat. “We slept together once. It doesn’t mean anything. You don’t love me so don’t say you do.” Richard didn’t know what to say. “What you’re doing is transference. You don’t love me; you love the idea of me. We’re friends who care a lot about each other, but that’s all. You don’t even know me!”

“But I do. I may not know everything about you, but I know enough.” Avery was about to make a rebuttal, but Richard cut her off. “I think you underestimate my ability to understand people. And I can’t choose who I fall in love with.”

Avery focused her attention back on her work, not interested in continuing the conversation. “Myles should be here in a few minutes.”

 


	28. Debriefing

_I’m a little bit surprised how slowly they’re moving_ , Richard thought as he waited in an interrogation cell. After festering in his anger, disappointment, and sadness all the way to the CIA headquarters and then for another two hours of just waiting, Richard felt tired. _I guess Dan was the only one in a hurry to get rid of me. Now I’m not her business, I’m no one’s important business._

Richard let out a heavy sigh and rested his left cheek against the cool metal of the table. He knew that the interrogation room was meant to intimidate him, but he felt so empty inside that there was nothing to react to the CIA’s threats. Another hour passed before the door opened and Myles walked in. Myles didn’t greet Richard, didn’t break his attention from the messages he was typing in his phone. He just pulled a chair into the corner and plopped down into it.

“Who are we waiting for?” Richard asked after Myles had slipped his phone into his left breast jacket pocket, folded his arms across his chest, and closed his eyes.

“Vortex. Thanks to you, Ghostrider is ripping him a new asshole.” Richard was impressed with the character change in Myles. There was even a different quality to Myles’ voice. The team’s goofy, cheerful newbie had been replaced with a detached, hardened veteran of the business. _Was Myles faking it the entire time, too? Was she right? Do I know any of them at all?_

It was ten more minutes before Jason stormed into the interrogation room. He peered won at Myles and the two men shared a look. Myles produced a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a lighter form his pants pocket; he handed the items over to Jason. One corner of Jason’s lips quirked up in a sardonic smile as he adeptly lit a cigarette. Jason took a long drag, and then gave a long exhale.

“I only smoke when I’m about ready to murder someone in cold blood,” Jason said, looking directly into Richard’s eyes. He took another long drag. “There are two ways we can do this. I’d prefer the way where you tell us everything you know and everything your thinking. We judge the content and quality of what you say, then you get to go home. Or…” Jason look another long drag. “I think you’re clever enough to figure out how the second way works.”

A chill ran down Richard’s spine. Although no love was lost being between the two men, this was the first time Richard was actually afraid of Jason. “The first way,” Richard managed to say.

“Smart man,” Jason replied, stubbing out his cigarette. He took a seat opposite Richard and placed his clasped hands on the metal table. “Start when you’re ready.”

Richard talked until he had nothing left to say. The entire time, Jason watched him with an expressionless face. Whenever Richard paused, Jason simply waited until Richard continued talking; there was no prompting, no feedback of what Jason wanted to hear. And unlike Avery, Jason sat absolutely still.

Satisfied with the debriefing, Jason asked, “Do you have any questions for me?”

“I’d like to finish my internship.”

Jason barked a laugh. “What? All four days of it that is left?”

“Please. It’s important to me.”

“DILLIGAF.”

“What?”

“Does it look like he gives a fuck?” Myles translated.

 _That’s a definite, hard “no.”_ Even though Richard knew that they were going to say no, he was still disappointed to hear the answer. “Will I get to… see her again?”

Jason shrugged. “That’s up to her. You might, if she ever decides to forgive you for your sins. But I would hazard a ‘fuck no’ with two middle fingers stuck way up is appropriate.” Myles snorted in his corner, agreeing with Jason completely and laughing at the mental picture. “Anything else?”

 _If she ever decides to forgive you for your sins,_ Richard repeated to himself in his head. His curiosity spiked and Richard couldn’t stop the question from coming out. “What happened to Benjamin Hunters?”

“Who?”

“Benjamin Hunters.” Richard swallowed the lump in throat. “I already told you that I read about him in the file. I’ve accounted for everyone after the operation in Palestine, but I don’t know what happened to him. He’s the one Jester wants because he’s the super genius with the technology. He can’t be dead, otherwise Jester wouldn’t give a shit about what you CIA spooks are up to.”

“That’s classified.”

“And Avery never talks about him. She doesn’t have any pictures or mementos or anything of him. It’s like he never existed to her; but we all know she derives a lot of who she is from the people around her. Something very severe must have happened between them because she even found it in herself to forgive you.”

Lightning fast, Jason reached across the table, grabbed the front of Richard’s shirt, and pulled. Richard’s nose connected with the metal surface with a sickening crunch and blood started flowing. Myles jumped to his feet and put a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “I’ll take it from here,” he said calmly. “Get a medic.” He gave Jason a small push; Jason glared at Richard attempting to fix his broken nose for a few moments, then turned and stomped out of the room.

Myles took Jason’s seat. “You shouldn’t have said that,” Myles said sadly. “I don’t think you realize that Jason is going to continue doing your physical training throughout filming. He’s going to punish you.” Myles shook his head. “But more importantly, you weren’t there. You didn’t have to make the choices he had to make. When you’re filming and have spent more time living in your character’s headspace, I hope you’ll understand.”

A medic walked into the room and rolled his eyes at the sight of Richard and all the blood. Without saying anything, he got to work on Richard’s face. Myles waited patiently for the medic to leave before continuing the conversation. “For what it’s worth, I don’t even know what happened to Dr. Hunters. I work for those two and I only know a tiny fraction of their secrets.”

Myles pulled a piece of paper folded in half along the long axis from an inside jacket pocket and slid it across the table to Richard, not caring that a little blood stained the edges. “Unfortunately for you, we have confiscated all you notebooks and cleared your electronic devices. There is no proof that you were ever here, ever in contact with us. The world already knows you did an internship at DARPA, but you are NEVER to mention with whom you were working and what kind of work you were doing TO ANYONE. I think Ghostrider had already given you the secrecy speech, so this is me formally re-emphasizing what she said.”

Myles handed Richard a pen. “Sign at the bottom and you are free to leave.”

Richard hesitated, knowing that his signature at the bottom meant. He looked up from the form and Myles met his eyes; Myles gave him a reassuring nod. With a sigh, Richard signed the form. Myles collected the items. The two men stood up and shook hands.

“Goodbye, Falcon.”

“TCOY, Hollywood. Delta 12 will escort you from the premises.”

\---

“You shouldn’t have reacted like that,” Myles said when he met up with Jason in Jason’s office later that evening. Rather than sit down, Myles perched on the edge of the Jason’s desk, on the opposite side from Jason. He offered Jason the box of crackers he was snacking on, knowing that both Jason and Avery probably skipped dinner to finish the paperwork that closed up Richard’s business.

Jason waved the box away and massaged his temples with hands. “I know.”

“Where is Hunters?”

“Don’t worry about it. Jester won’t find him.”

“What makes you so confident?” Myles asked. “I’ve read the mission reports. Jester is very, very good. He will find out eventually.”

Jason shook his head. “I highly doubt that.”

“Come on. Please? And don’t give me a bullshit answer like, ‘It’s because we’re better than Jester.’”

“We are better than Jester.”

“Fuck off.” Just at that moment, Avery appeared in the doorway. It only took one look from Jason to know what Myles wanted. “Well?” Myles demanded while rounding on Avery. He was not amused at that particular moment with the Ghostrider-Vortex silent communications.

Avery closed the door behind her and took a deep breath. “I am Dr. Benjamin Hunters,” Avery said in the most flat, matter-of-fact tone she could. “He was a cover story created to protect the research Clive and I were doing. But anything Hunters does, anything he says, all came from me.”

Myles shook his head, almost in a state of disbelief. “Jester thinks you’ll lead him to Hunters. When in fact, he’s had Hunters all this time.” He exhaled heavily. “You fuckers are fucking crazy.”

“We’ll take that as a compliment,” Jason said.

“Fuck. Well, that changes things. Who else knows?”

"The three of us, Alleycat, and Winters."


	29. Claire Gregors

Eric wolf-whistled when he saw Richard emerge from the bathroom, his face clean shaven and his hair styled. Richard was wearing a cream colored cable-knit sweater and well-fitting jeans. “What?” Richard asked.

“You, my friend, are going to get laid tonight.”

Richard shook his head. “I’d rather not.”

“With the way you looked before you got here, I think you need it.”

Richard rolled his eyes. _I know I looked like a sleep-deprived homeless man when I showed up, but that tends to happen when you self-impose exile for four days. I had a lot of shit to work through, like finding out Dan is a fucking CIA operative. Regardless, I don’t think that having sex with some random woman is going to solve my problems._

“You laugh, but it’s true.” Eric slapped his friend on the shoulder. “You ready for the party of the decade?”

Richard couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped his lips. “A party to celebrate Eric Stevenson making his grand return to the stage later this year? More like a party to celebrate the end of high quality theatre because of the return of Eric Stevenson.”

“That was unwarranted.” Eric made an exaggerated pouting face at Richard. But he quickly switch back into his regular, wide grin. “Let’s get going!”

\---

As soon as they walked through the door, a number of people cheered in greeting and shoved drinks into their hands. Richard, knowing less than a handful of people at the party, orbited in Eric’s periphery and nursed his glass of wine. He nodded politely and made small talk with everyone Eric introduced him to.

After the twentieth or so introduction, Richard felt the need to escape because he could feel his patience beginning to run thin. Richard was already a shy, introverted man to begin with; and as much as he wanted to believe he was over it, he was still recovering from the emotionally draining experience that was his DARPA internship.  He slipped out onto the balcony and took a deep breath of the chilly night air. _New York isn’t that far away from Arlington, but somehow the air is different._ As he felt himself relax, he wondered what Avery was up to. _Probably sitting in the silent darkness of her office, her face two inches away from the computer screen, grumbling about her computer code not compiling. There would be a mug of tea growing cold in the top right corner of her desk._

"How are you?" a voice interrupted Richard's thoughts. Richard turned and smiled at the woman approaching him; they exchanged a brief hug and kissed each other on the cheeks.

"I'm doing well." He smiled brightly at Claire. "How are you?" It had been a while since they last saw each other; they had met very briefly for a casting trial. She was going to play his ex-wife in the upcoming series.

Claire Gregors was a bubbly, blonde woman with blue eyes and who looked like she a 1920’s Hollywood starlet. Although she was only a year older than Richard, she had the positive attitude and sex appeal of a woman in her early twenties. Where Avery gave off an air of commanding masculinity and strength, Claire was elegance and gentility.

"Better. Now that I know you're here." She smiled back. "Do you mind if I sit down? My feet hurt."

Richard took one look at her high stilettos and said, "Please."

Claire sat down on a table bench and patted the spot next to her. "Sit with me. We can look out at the lights while you finish nursing that wine."

The two sat quietly for a few minutes.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Richard replied absently.

She chuckled. “Okay. I was thinking about Denver, Colorado.” Claire told Richard that she grew up in Denver and told him a random story from her childhood.

Richard knew he was supposed to offer a similar story in exchange in order to not be rude, so he told Claire about how he used to bike around his hometown with his brother. His initial reluctance to socialize slowly ebbed away and he found that he was enjoying himself. They took turns sharing things about each other: where they were from, similar childhood experiences, what they were looking forward to, funny stories about Eric, and their work. As they talked, they subtly scooted closer to each other until their knees were touching.

_She's very sweet,_  Richard thought.  _If I weren’t already preoccupied with Dan, I could see myself falling for Claire. She’s definitely easier to get along with. She also doesn’t make you feel like you always have something to prove in order to stay friends with her._

"Excuse me?" Richard asked. Claire had said something, but he was too distracted to pick it up.

"I love this song. Dance with me?"

Richard hesitated a moment and mumbled some incoherent excuse about not being a good dancer. Claire narrowed her eyes at him and said, "Please. Dance with me, Richard Armitage." She took one of his hands in hers and tugged on it. Again, not wanting to be rude, Richard rose to his feet and danced with her.

Towards the end of the night, a very inebriated Eric sauntered over to the two and slurred, "Armitage, I love you."

Richard laughed and patted the empty space on his other side. Eric dropped himself down into the spot and rested his head on Richard's shoulder. Richard loosely wrapped an arm around Eric’s shoulders.

“Did I tell I love you yet?” Eric said.

“Yes, you did.”

“Good.” Eric adjusted his head for a more comfortable position on Richard’s shoulder. Claire giggled at the sight of the two men.

“I think I should get him home,” Richard said. “But please, finish your story first.”

Claire shook her head. “It’s not that important. I’ll see you at work?”

\---

“Would you like to get dinner with me?” Claire asked as she lowered her script. She was sitting across from Richard in her trailer and they had been practicing their lines.

Even though they had become good friends over the past few weeks of filming and they had shared a number of meals, there something in the tone of her voice that made him hesitate. Richard quickly realized that she was asking him on a real date. He mentally slapped himself for not noticing her attraction towards him sooner; the way she was all smiles for him, the way she was inviting him to social activities, the way she doted on him. He thought she was just being friendly because he was particularly moody and lonely. And just then, when she asked him to dinner, she had glanced down his lips for a moment and bit her lower lip.

“Uh…” he mumbled. “I’m sorry, but I think I have to say no.” There was a flicker of disappointment in her eyes and Richard felt a pang of guilt. “I don’t think it would be fair to you,” he quickly added. “I’m not available.”

"Oh..." Claire replied. "Sorry if I made you uncomfortably the past few weeks… Flirting with you all the time… You should have said something." She smiled at Richard, but it lacked its usual excited energy. "I'll get over it in a few days."

"It's fine. It's actually kind of flattering..." Richard forced a smile in return. "Most women either are in love with the idea of me or just aren't that impressed." He carded a hand through his hair. “I probably should have said something earlier. I didn’t mean to lead you on.”

“We’re adults. We handled this like adults. We’ll be fine.”

Richard nodded. _It’s a shame I didn’t my relationship with Dan with level of civility. I really miss her._

\---

The first kiss was pure adrenaline and force. Richard pushed Claire up against the wall and smashed his lips to hers. He kissed her a few more times with the same fiery passion; then he drew back just enough so that their noses were touching and he looked into Claire's eyes. Richard brought his hand up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear and then to cup her face. The second kiss was slow, sweet, and tender. With his other hand, he traced the outline of her neck down to her collarbone and clumsily worked on the buttons of her shirt. Giving up halfway, Richard focused his attention on where Claire's hands were traveling.

The two continued to kiss one another until the director shouted, "CUT! I think we got what we need."

Richard pulled away from Claire and let out the breath he didn't know he was holding. He was relieved that they only had to do one take; although he was comfortable with Claire, he still felt awkward when it came to filming intimate love scenes. Rather than waiting around, Richard made a direct effort to get away from the set. He found himself brooding in a corner, drinking bottled water.

"Well... wow," Claire breathed out when she took a seat next to Richard. "Do you kiss your girlfriend like that?" She smiled mischievously at Richard. “If you do, I’m insanely jealous.”

“Who?”

“Avery.” Richard flinched. Claire lifted an eyebrow at him. "You only whispered that name into my ear when we were sucking face five minutes ago. I'm assuming the woman you did your internship is your girlfriend, especially considering you told me that you’re not available. And because you talk about her nonstop, which I don’t think you even realize that you do it.”

"She's not my girlfriend,” Richard replied.

"In that case, she's the woman you're in madly love with?” Richard nervously twisted the cap to his water bottle on and off and back on again. She sympathetically reached out and stilled his hands with her own. “Does she know you're in love with her?"

"Uh..." Richard stammered. "Uh... I think so." Rather than offering a platitude, Claire waited for Richard to continue. “She’s with another man,” Richard admitted. He paused again and swallowed a lump in his throat. “Fuck, I feel awful for saying this. But her relationship with him is unstable, so I held out hope that maybe, you know… She could fall in love with me, too.” Another pause. “We didn’t end things well.”

“Your relationship with Avery may currently be damaged, but there is no relationship that can’t be fixed. Sometimes, there is more strength and beauty in things that are mended.”

Richard nodded. _I appreciate the kind words, but it doesn’t exactly work that way with Dan. Oh God, you have no idea how much I wish that was true._

\---

“What will you be up to for the next few months?” Claire asked. She was perched on the edge of the table in his trailer, watching Richard pack.

He shrugged. “I’m going home.”

“Like London, home? Or New York, home?”

“New York,” Richard replied. He zipped his bag shut. “I think I need some time to decompress, lie in bed, and remember what a doofus I normally am.”

Claire chuckled. “That sounds delightful.” She wrapped her arms around Richard in a friendly hug and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Call me if you ever need company.”

“Thank you. What are you going to do?”

“I have another job to do. So it’s a few weeks of vacation for me and then Toronto for two months.”

“I’ll see you during the press tour?”

“I’m looking forward to it.”


End file.
